Hyderabad: As per AICTE,Govt. of India, during academic year 2019-20 around 3,069 institutions are offering Management Program (MBA / PGDM) with an annual intake of 3,73,336 students and enrollments of 2,42,787 students. In any given academic year around 5,00,000 students study MBA course in India. In Telugu states nearly 1,16,000 students are currently studying MBA course. Telanganahas 336 institutions with an annual intake of 49,979 students and enrollments of 29,281 per year and60,218students are currently studying the course. Andhra Pradesh has346 institutions with an annual intake of 45,478 students and enrollment of 27,532, per year and55,987students are currently studying the course. From total enrolled students, only 50 percent are able to get jobs. When top business schools and major cities are excluded from the list then only 20 percent are able to get jobs. According to the India Skills Report (2019) by Wheebox, People Strong and CII only 54 per cent of management graduates get jobs and majority of these students are from top business schools and bigger cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow etc. Placement offers received by management graduates in Tier-II, Tier-III cities and rural areas are dismal.
Adding fuel to fire the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown new challenges to institutions, students, and industry in teaching, learning, assessment, and recruitment of MBAs.Teachers and students find online teaching and learning ineffective due to poor internet connection, disconnections during class hours, ability of teachers to adapt online teaching techniques, physical absence, etc. On the other side, companies are demanding conceptually strong and tech savvy management graduates who should be able to fuse business management concepts with software applications to solve business problems. Considering contemporary challenges, companies are conducting online assessment tests, online interviews, giving online offer letters and asking selected candidates to work online. Everything has become online. There is a visible gap between what students learn through online classes from colleges and companies’ expectations about the employability skills of students. Because of which many management graduates face tough time in getting placement offers and are remaining unemployed or underemployed.
Dr. Rama Krishna Yelamanchili, professor of finance in ICFAI University, Hyderabad developed an integrated approach for online teaching and learning to prepare management graduates for jobs. He said that a random search in Naukri job portal about 10 popular management related jobs result in more than 85,000 posts by hundreds of companies. The search report clearly indicates that there are thousands of job openings for skilled management graduates. What is required is students should learn the job skills that companies are expecting.
To fill this gap and to help lakhs of management graduates across the country, he created a YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/rkvarsity) and uploaded hundreds of of simple and short videos ranging between 2 minutes and 15 minutes. These videos cover business management concepts, application of concepts, use of software applications to solve complex business calculations. Students can watch these videos anytime, anywhere on their mobiles, laptops, computers or in internet-connected televisions.
Dr. Rama Krishna also launched a website (www.rkvarsity.com) to help students take conventional and non-conventional assessments, puzzles, quizzes, and case studies to test their learning. Students can visit RK varsity webpage and take tests for free. These tests will help students to prepare for online exams, online recruitment tests, and interviews. Furthermore, students can download playlists, question banks for free,and watch or read those at their convenience.
Since its launch in June 2020, RKvarsity YouTube channel had 46,000 visitors from 30 countries with 250 visitors per day. On the other side its website witnesses 1,000-page hits and 300 downloads per week. With these two Dr. Rama Krishna is helping thousands of management graduates to prepare for MBA exams, summer internships, and Jobs.In addition,RK varsity helps lakhs of job holders to upgrade their skills, protect their current jobs, and get career advancement.
Prof. Rama Krishna said that RK varsity partnered with Udemy- World’s leading online education portal, to offer certification courses on data analytics, data science, business analytics to management graduates across the world. Hundreds of students from 45 countries enrolled for these courses and got certified by Udemy. As per Udemy’s recent report, during Covid-19 pandemic, online learning witnessed rapid growth. The data shows a 130% growth in enrollments in the U.S., and 200% in India. The report also mentioned that people in India are learning Business Fundamentals (281% growth).
Dr. Rama Krishna said that as a teacher it is his responsibility to provide quality education to his students at ICFAI university as well as students of Telugu states and management graduates spread across India. He opines that teaching should be object oriented and should help students to reach their career goal, either job or entrepreneurship. With these initiatives, he wishes to help 10 lakh management graduates every year. In the future, he wishes to provide similar services to 50 lakhs under graduate management students in the Country.
He decisively says that every new challenge gives an opportunity to grow. Due to challenges posed by current pandemic, he is able to train thousands of students across the world by working from home. He modestly says that with RK varsity he is creating a digital library which management graduates can access, anytime,anywhere from any location in the world for free. He foresees that after pandemic also there will high demand for online management education courses especially for those courses that provide job skills as required by corporates.
