India’s top rung B-schools are attempting to revamp their MBA programmes. An overhauled syllabus with new subjects thrown in and old ones scrubbed out is expected to be ready for 2012-13 at many premier institutes. The Indian School of Business (ISB), Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), IIM-Kozhikode (IIM-K), and S P Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR) are some of the schools attempting to bridge the gap between classroom wisdom and business realities. Subjects like ethics, corporate social responsibility and management mantras from the Bhagavad Gita have made a debut along with hardship stints in backward villages and mandatory internships with NGOs.

However the view from industry is that most of the changes in the curriculum are cosmetic and do little to tackle the root of the malaise at Indian B-schools - that they serve to create an elite social network and are clueless about the way business is run in real life.

Source: The Economic Times