India – Business Scholls: Apart from the top, most are struggling to survive

“Apart from the top few, most business schools are struggling to survive.” writes Kalpana Pathak in Out of business on business-standard.com

“The scary truth of business education, which not so long ago was a passport to a cushy corporate job, is finally out — there just aren’t enough takers. There are, at last count, over 3,000 business schools in India. Apart from the top 25 or so, which includes the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management, Indian School of Business and a handful of others, most others are struggling to fill their seats. There are about 300,000 business school seats in the country. Last year, around 60,000, reckon sector experts, went vacant; this year, the expectations are the number will cross 70,000. A crisis faces the country’s second- and third-rung business schools. The sector is abuzz with the talk that some have decided to down shutters.”

“Low entry barriers have resulted in business schools popping up all over the country… almost 100,000 business school seats were created in 2008, when the job market was on fire. Since then, the market has slowed down but another 80,000 seats got added in 2010.”

“Three thousand business schools with 300,000 seats may look small in a country of 1.2 billion people but it is way beyond the absorptive capacity of its corporations.”

Moreover, “human resource managers in companies complain that the stock churned out by most business schools is unemployable.”

Source: Out of business.