IIM C cuts PGPEX contact hours by 15%, hikes credits from 66 to 78

KOLKATA: They can compute better than they can talk, they react better to computer games, virtual friends are more real to them than true buddies, they can rattle off problem solving formulae but cannot negotiate one to one. Taking note of the trend that is taking students away from real-life situations, IIM-Calcutta has now designed a completely new curriculum to ensure that they are able to tackle life better once they leave the campus. 

The premier B-school has cut down 120 hours of classroom teaching time for its one-year full time MBA (PGPEX) students so that they can spend more time playing real games, chatting with batch mates or participating in cultural programmes. The institute feels this will help them catch up with life that they had virtually stopped living because of study pressure during their high-school days. The result was that, despite being armed with an MBA degree, the passouts hadn’t developed vital skills that they needed for their career. 

“From this year onwards, the focus is on helping the PGPEX students develop soft skills like communication, negotiation, understanding cross-cultural business ethics and helping them upgrade their EQ so that they can understand and empathize in their business communication for better results,” said Partha Pratim Pal, senior faculty member and chairperson of PGPEX. 

“Most of the students have extremely high IQ and are experts in technical skills like developing softwares or coding, but years of focusing on these areas have prevented them for developing natural skills. We are hence bringing in a change of policy and reducing the classroom contact load to give them free hours to discuss, contemplate and rediscover life skills,” he added. 

Instead of studying for 810 hours, the PGPEX students will now study for 690 hours in the classroom. The number of credits has accordingly been reduced from 78 to 66. There’s more. Of these 690 hours, only 70% would be for theory teaching. The rest of the classroom time will be utilized to help develop communication and negotiation skills among students

Instead of studying for 810 hours, the PGPEX students will now study for 690 hours in the classroom. The number of credits has accordingly been reduced from 78 to 66. There’s more. Of these 690 hours, only 70% would be for theory teaching. The rest of the classroom time will be utilized to help develop communication and negotiation skills among students. Role plays, debates and quiz will replace the chalk-and-talk method. “Soft skills is an area where our students need a lot of improvement. The typical path to a B-school like ours is through the engineering school. We end up getting students who have turned into machines, very talented but extremely mechanical. Such people can never make successful managers till we encourage them to develop social skills and hence we have tweaked the curriculum,” said IIMC director Saibal Chattopadhyay. 

A slew of extra curricular activities are being framed for the new academic sessions so that the PGPEX students have enough to choose from. Right from football, cricket, tennis, basketball and swimming one can take up dramatics, music (rock band, popular or classical), poem/fiction writing etc. A faculty member, Suren Sista is in charge of forming a council that will ensure that each student is spending quality time with an extra curricular activity every day. The output would be graded. 

If successful, the new model of teaching is likely to be included in the two-year PGP courses as well.

Article Courtesy the Times of India. Click this link for the original article.