Business School Rankings: The New
Ad-space Selling Mantra
One thing uniform about Indian
business schools, regardless of size, reputation, location, placements and other
academic trivia, is that all of them are ranked amongst the top-10 by some
incongruous publication or the other.
While the ranking system for
universities / colleges / business schools in the West (typically represented by
institutions in the US, UK, Europe) have become more and more scientific, the
same cannot be said about institutions back home. The better known publications
such as a US College News or the Financial Times in the UK resort to statistical
tools using historical data and year-wise comparisons whilst still relying on
the basic benchmarks such as faculty, research, infrastructure / facilities,
student scholastic performance, admission criterion, programs of study and many
such prerequisites.
Unfortunately, the ranking race
is a commercial opportunity waiting to be exploited for most publications worth
their salt. The race has gotten murkier with publications of all hues jumping
onto the ranking bandwagon.
So a cursory glance at any
publication at least through the time that students / parents are considering
possible study options would reveal institutions from all corners touting their
newly acquired ranking (which invariably is about how much advertising space the
institution being ranked commits to purchase in the publication which ranks).
It makes for interesting reading
how many institutions that have just begun have been ranked for the previous
five years. While the publication / institution conducting the ranking survey is
mentioned in fine print in all probability at the bottom of the advertisement,
the criterion used by the publication in arriving at published rankings would be
unavailable to most of us.
While the business of ranking
helps add to the bottom lines of most publications, it definitely would be
worrying if parents / students actually considered the rankings as credible
measures of the institution's effectiveness or for that matter in making
admissions decisions.
And there are publications that
can make the deal sweeter by providing the institution with a good ranking as
well as advertorial space next to the page in which these rankings are
published. The advertorial normally quotes a Professor or a Director of the
institution paying to be ranked - and in India it doesn't take tenure, teaching
experience or terminal degrees to become a Professor - the moment you are
employed to teach, you become one.
The last I hear from the local
chaiwalla who is an authority on all things academic is that some of the
well-known Directors / Professors have PR agencies working on getting their
faces in the veritable Page 3 section (considered an important milestone in
their academic careers). Unconfirmed reports also suggest that some institutions
have established awards (in the name of self-styled stalwarts in education)
which they unfailingly win year after year.
