At India’s Top Business School, The Jobs Are Plentiful & The Students Satisfied

A class in session at ISB

ROUGHLY 55% OF THE TEACHING IS DONE BY VISITING FACULTY

The same is true of the 49 permanent faculty as well as the more than 100 visiting faculty who comes to teach at ISB annually. Though 10% of the permanent faculty hold American passports, there is only one faculty member who is not Indian born: an Israeli professor. By and large, the visitors are Indian as well, though the school’s ability to attract some of the best Indian professors from such prominent schools as the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School has immediately brought some truly exceptional teachers into its classrooms. About 55% of the teaching at ISB is done by the visiting academics.

That dependency on outsiders is by design. “We wanted to start the school quickly so the decision was made to use a portfolio approach and to fly in faculty,” explains Rangneskar. “The easiest time for them to come is the summer and we couldn’t keep them too long we tried to compress everything. We can’t afford to have our facilities empty for eight of every 24 months like other schools.”

That is not the only way the school is substantially different from most business schools. For one thing, ISB cannot technically grant an MBA degree to its students even though it delivers an MBA curriculum. Instead, students graduate with a PGP, or Post Graduate Program in Management. By Indian law, only full universities can grant an MBA. ISB’s program was also disruptive in the market because it is an accelerated one-year degree. Incoming students arrive here in April every year and graduate the first week of April the next.

 A SCHOOL INSIDE A 260-ACRE ‘COCOON’

And then, there is the compound. The 260-acre plot that houses the main campus in Hyderabad is fenced off from the world with armed guards at the entry gate—just like the massive Microsoft development center down the street. Inside this protected enclave lives all the faculty and their families as well as all the students in four separate student villages. Faculty live in subsidized housing that costs little more than one-eighth what it would cost beyond the walls. For the students, living in the compound in a mix of four-bedroom and studio serviced apartments is mandatory. About 20% of the students are married and many have children here. “This is not India,” explains Arun Pereira, a marketing professor who once taught in the U.S. at St. Louis University. “This is an artificial cocoon we live in.”

It is a self-sufficient cocoon, with a supermarket, a bank, a child day care center, a book store, coffee shop, travel desk, and recreation center.  “Outside these gates, I cannot guarantee water, power or connectivity,” says Dean Rangneskar flatly. He quickly adds security to his list. The amenities inside the compound, including the open-air atrium which is the social hub of the campus, makes it possible to only rarely go outside the gates.

The program itself is something of a intense, often anxiety-filled whirlwind. Rangneskar says the biggest complaints of students is that the curriculum is too tough and the one-year program is relentless. “We are taught a lot in one year and then there is often not enough time to assimilate the learning,” says Harmanjot Singh. “A few periods of rest and reflection would help.”