Eureka! Single-stream specialists turn Jacks-of-all-trades

​Hyderabad: Gone are the days when students were forced to choose between few courses offered under management stream, as trends are changing, management colleges are introducing new streams to attract more graduates. But, according to the sources in JNTU-H, the stark reality is that there is no clarity as to who should teach these newly specialised courses.

According to sources, there are about 200 colleges offering masters courses in management in various specialisations like Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Human Resources, Finance, and Marketing for years. However, as these specialisations are losing their sheen in attracting the young graduates, now, a new trend has emerged 

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior faculty member from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H) said that the new specialisations being offered include E-Commerce, Information Technology for Managers, Data Warehousing and Data Mining, Software Project Management and the like.

"This is to keep pace with the emerging interface between the technology and business domains that these new specialisations have been planned. Also, to enable those pursuing management courses at the masters’ level in the State competitive on par with those doing similar courses elsewhere in the country," he added.

It was against this backdrop that the JNTU-H also revised the core syllabus of MBA introducing new areas to be taught. The enhanced syllabus includes E-Commerce, Management Information Systems- Entrepreneur Resources Planning (MIS-ERP), Business Analytics, and the like.

The JNTU-H and its affiliated colleges wanted to introduce these new specialisations with employment potential to the candidates after completion of their graduation like BA, B Com, B Sc, and BBA. This would help students with B Com or B Sc computers, BBA to opt for different specialisations, the sources added. 

However, sensing that the new specialisations at masters’ level offered by JNTU-H and its affiliated colleges might pose a tough competition, several private universities have gone a step ahead and erected big hoardings across the city, offering 'Data Science’ courses at the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) as well as Bachelor of Business Management (BBM). This would help the private universities to catch students’ right after passing 10+2 level. These courses are further tailored to offer courses like 'Data Science' in MBA as well as M Sc.

So far, the JNTU-H has not ratified any faculty specifying a specific degree at the masters’ level as qualified to teach these specialisations. And, the colleges have not got any letter or circular on the issue of who should be the qualified faculty with a suitable degree to teach, said the principal of a private college offering management programmes. 

Following this, it was the faculty members who had completed their MBA course with a single specialisation like HR, Finance, Marketing and the like have been assigned the work of teaching these entirely new specialisations which are inter-disciplinary in nature.

Consequently, the students are being fed with notes prepared to pass in the examination than gaining any real-time teaching and learning experience in the classroom. The situation in some of the private universities is no different. Following a complaint, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has contacted the State Higher Education authorities to ascertain the facts on the issue as well as the universities introducing the courses not approved by it.