Currently, there is a conundrum facing Indian business studies students and their parents, which is taking the UAE round and round, in a circle.
The top business schools in India have such stiff entrance requirements that a youngster may face a 1 in 400 chance of winning a seat. The UAE on the other hand has business courses that require lower school grades and no entrance test — but are usually more expensive. Meanwhile, the business school (B-school) landscape is changing; in recent months many lesser-known schools in India have closed as their graduates face the reality check that it really does matter where your degree comes from.
In Dubai, 56 per cent of last year’s 8,000+ graduates were on business programmes and policymakers are trying to steer universities towards varying the courses available. A business degree looks less attractive in a country that needs young talent in retail, tourism, transport and logistics.
But while students continue to flock to business studies classes, the vital question is: Are Indian pupils from UAE schools up to the task of facing the cut-throat competition that defines Indian education?
Ammar Kakka, Executive Dean and Head, Heriot-Watt University Dubai Campus, says: “By and large, yes. Most Indian students are technically sound, good at computational skills, logical thinking, memorisation skills and working under pressure.
“In order to gain entry into the best business schools in India and abroad they have to be developed as critical thinkers who can dissect the problem to the core and go beyond the ‘why’ of the problem.”
Heriot-Watt has “a good proportion” of Indian students, both from India and > those who grew up in the UAE. In the last two years most of the university’s prizes instituted by external professional bodies in accounting, finance and management accounting were won by Indian students.
So what about the theory that the UAE’s Indian students pay their way into the top B-schools? Professor Kakka says: “Admissions at top business schools are merit-based, although applying to these schools implies that the students can afford the fees or are able to obtain a scholarship — which is definitely merit-based.”
Skills over knowledge
Professor Christopher Abraham, Head, SP Jain School of Global Management Dubai campus, has seen many changes in higher education in the UAE in the past 20 years. “When there was not much choice in Dubai, parents who could afford high-fee schools sent their children abroad to the US, Canada or the UK for further education. Now many parents choose to keep their children here.
“While our priority is to give young people knowledge and skills so they can pursue their chosen path, knowledge is now available online free of charge, so we have to focus on other skills such as leadership or ethical decision-making and give them the experiences to equip them in the workplace.”
Around one in five of Dubai’s higher education students are Asian, and over the past 40 years thousands of these have come from The Indian High School, a relatively low-fee school. CEO Ashok Kumar says: “We offered Entrepreneurship as a subject in Grade 11 just as soon as the Central Board of Secondary Education, our regulatory board, approved it.”
The school has built partnerships with local businesses so pupils get work experience, they have a B-school within the school, and they tutor pupils to prepare them for B-school entrance tests. “More than 2,000 students pass out of UAE schools from the commerce stream with Business Studies, Accountancy, Marketing, Economics, Mathematics and Entrepreneurship as core and optional subjects,” says Kumar.
Dr Janakiraman Moorthy, Director, IMT Dubai campus, agrees that the focus is more on employability skills than academic: “There may be some differences in preparation of students in the two regions, the UAE and India. In the UAE, since the students are away from their home country they are more open to explore and travel in pursuit of higher studies and their career.”
Ancillary programmes
Most UAE schools offer business English or functional English as an option instead of English Literature to prepare students for the world of commerce. They are also introduced to videoconferencing, and take part in creativity and innovation competitions across the emirates so they get a taste of selling an idea or a product to a critical audience.
Such new thinking pays off. A spokesperson at GEMS Education, which has schools across the UAE, says: “Our students have gone to 12 out of the top 15 universities in the world in recent years.
“In India, GEMS students have been accepted to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), the University of Delhi, Mumbai, Madras, and Pune, to name a few.”
In Pune, entrepreneur Arun Prabhudesai has founded My Open Campus, a free online service for students to help them with their studies. He says: “The word ‘competition’ is too mild to describe getting into a good business school.
“The bar has been raised too high, teaching is too theoretical, and students know what they have been taught, but can they understand it? Until students are helped to become analytical, then we are just bookworms.”
For now, the thirst for a B-school seat and a good business degree is unquenchable.
