What is the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear about Part-time MBA Courses? Or shall I say, do you know about part-time MBA? Is it some kind of correspondence course? Is it useful? Oh, there is no ROI in part-time courses... Most of the working executives face such questions.
In this article, I would be addressing some of these doubts.
The objective of these courses is 'two-way' learning. Now you would wonder what is two-way learning. Management education in India has been heavily bent towards full-time MBA. The creamy layer of full-time MBAs become heroes in media. Media seems to neglect that fact that the highest salary getter always have very strong experience. Most of the full-timers join to earn money, and it becomes more relevant when the percentage of joiners are freshers having no work experience or relatively negligible work experience. So learning is generally missing in such classes.
Two way leaning is for the students and teachers. Part-time students learn new concepts which can be validated in real context immediately in their respective firms. And teachers get valuable knowledge about the validity of their theories from part-time students' experiences. That's like a win-win situation for any B-school and for the students. And this is the reason why most of the reputed institutes are going for part-time / executive courses. Not to mention that the institute gets good industry interface and part-time students becomes brand ambassadors for these institutes.
No wonder, why such courses are very popular in developed countries.
Now that the objective is clear, we need to know in what way part-time courses are different from other courses. Part-time courses have same level of teaching as in full-time courses but stretched over three years. Yes, your read it right. The contents of part-time and full-time courses are entirely same. However, the disadvantage with full-time courses is that the stress is on grades and not learning as it pays them finally. Executive courses are more focused on a particular functional area.
Correspondence courses do not provide face-to-face teaching, which is very very essential for any course. Until and unless one faces regular exams, clarify doubts from teachers, the sense of ownership can not come. That's the reason why online courses could never become popular anywhere in the world.
As there is growing need for MBA professional, working executives and organisations are realising the importance of part-time MBA. There would be more and more MBA professionals in India, and this would become a necessary requirement to reach to the top level of management. So it is essential to understand the real value of such courses in terms of both learning and monetary perspective. Both are important.
Leaning perspective has already been discussed. Talking about monetary benefits, the comparison is done for monetary gains and loss compared to full-time. A normal two-years experience (minimum requirement for any part-time course in India) executive would be earning around 3 LPA. Some guys earn even more and some guys less. Taking this figure as base for two years, the total amount is 6 LPA (discounting the increase in salary over years and also increase in money by time value of money concept). This was opportunity cost for leaving job and going for full-time course. Also, the actual cost of doing MBA is generally around 3-4 Lakhs (could cost more including the interest to be paid on loan, cost of staying in hostel, food, etc.). Overall, the cost comes around 10 Lakhs. And yes, don't forget the loss in experience for the 2 years!
So all the working executives who go for full-time courses have to answer this question. Is it really worth paying such huge amount? I hope this would bring some clarity towards such courses.
This article is not to demean any other management courses but to give the part-time course its due importance, which it truly deserves. And also clarifying what is the objective of such courses and how is it comparable vis-à-vis other management courses. I hope that students would be in better position to decide what and which management course will suit their requirement.
[Source]
In this article, I would be addressing some of these doubts.
The objective of these courses is 'two-way' learning. Now you would wonder what is two-way learning. Management education in India has been heavily bent towards full-time MBA. The creamy layer of full-time MBAs become heroes in media. Media seems to neglect that fact that the highest salary getter always have very strong experience. Most of the full-timers join to earn money, and it becomes more relevant when the percentage of joiners are freshers having no work experience or relatively negligible work experience. So learning is generally missing in such classes.
Two way leaning is for the students and teachers. Part-time students learn new concepts which can be validated in real context immediately in their respective firms. And teachers get valuable knowledge about the validity of their theories from part-time students' experiences. That's like a win-win situation for any B-school and for the students. And this is the reason why most of the reputed institutes are going for part-time / executive courses. Not to mention that the institute gets good industry interface and part-time students becomes brand ambassadors for these institutes.
No wonder, why such courses are very popular in developed countries.
Now that the objective is clear, we need to know in what way part-time courses are different from other courses. Part-time courses have same level of teaching as in full-time courses but stretched over three years. Yes, your read it right. The contents of part-time and full-time courses are entirely same. However, the disadvantage with full-time courses is that the stress is on grades and not learning as it pays them finally. Executive courses are more focused on a particular functional area.
Correspondence courses do not provide face-to-face teaching, which is very very essential for any course. Until and unless one faces regular exams, clarify doubts from teachers, the sense of ownership can not come. That's the reason why online courses could never become popular anywhere in the world.
As there is growing need for MBA professional, working executives and organisations are realising the importance of part-time MBA. There would be more and more MBA professionals in India, and this would become a necessary requirement to reach to the top level of management. So it is essential to understand the real value of such courses in terms of both learning and monetary perspective. Both are important.
Leaning perspective has already been discussed. Talking about monetary benefits, the comparison is done for monetary gains and loss compared to full-time. A normal two-years experience (minimum requirement for any part-time course in India) executive would be earning around 3 LPA. Some guys earn even more and some guys less. Taking this figure as base for two years, the total amount is 6 LPA (discounting the increase in salary over years and also increase in money by time value of money concept). This was opportunity cost for leaving job and going for full-time course. Also, the actual cost of doing MBA is generally around 3-4 Lakhs (could cost more including the interest to be paid on loan, cost of staying in hostel, food, etc.). Overall, the cost comes around 10 Lakhs. And yes, don't forget the loss in experience for the 2 years!
So all the working executives who go for full-time courses have to answer this question. Is it really worth paying such huge amount? I hope this would bring some clarity towards such courses.
This article is not to demean any other management courses but to give the part-time course its due importance, which it truly deserves. And also clarifying what is the objective of such courses and how is it comparable vis-à-vis other management courses. I hope that students would be in better position to decide what and which management course will suit their requirement.
[Source]
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