MANAGEMENT EDUCATION THROUGH DISTANCE MODE

Virender Kumar *



The objectives of this writing is primarily introspective in nature and aims at highlighting gap in the educational system with special reference to imparting management education through distance mode. The need for such a study was strongly felt in view of the business environment prevailing in the country, especially after the decision of the Government of India to implement the second phase of structural reforms and also the concept of globalization gaining acceptance the world-over.

Purposes of any educational system as broadly understood and practiced are:

- to provide general and specialized knowledge;

- to provide historical and cultural literacy;

- to help students prepare for mature and effective lives;

- to teach students to cope productivity with diversity and change;

- to develop the citizens of a free society;

- to study of the classics of art and literature, an emphasis on theory and reflection and development of critical thinking, imagination and expression;

- to prepare for work which is the only one among the reasons for the pursuit of education, whether that education is liberal, vocational or professional and whether it is attained through conventional methods or through distance education

The main objectives of distance learning as per the UGC document, ‘Development Assistance for Universities and Scheme of Distance Education 1993’, are:

- to provide a system of students-centre self-paced learning;

- to provide a flexible, diversified and open system of education;

- to develop by providing wider access to higher education to persons of all ages and sex particularly to working persons and to economically or otherwise handicapped and persons residing in remote areas;


* Joint Controller of Examinations, Panjab University, Chandigarh.


to provide means of upgradation of skills and qualifications and;

- to develop education as a life by activity so that the individual can refresh his knowledge in an existing discipline or acquire knowledge in new areas.


The development of self in Educational Institutions and over one’s life-time and the ability to contribute to the community and wider society have categorically been recognized as larger purposes of education.

We must search our hearts and scratch our heads to precisely examine the concept of distance education vis-à-vis the purposes of education listed above to know ourselves whether any, some or all purposes of education are being met to the entire satisfaction of the partners of distance education viz. students, teachers, administrators and society at large.

Before we do that let us examine briefly two educational models viz. the traditional model and the learning model through distance education as is summarized in the table 1.

Table 1. Comparison between Traditional teaching Model and Distance Education Model

Traditional Teaching Model -------------------------------Distance Education Model

***********************************Strategy/Vision **************

(i) Goals-----------------------------------------------Growth in Institutional facilities, .....................................................................................................faculty and financial resources

.............................. .....................................................................Empowerment of Participants

....................................................................................................Development of leaders and

..................................................................................... .............researchers needed for new,competitive

................................................................................................... non-traditional organizations

(ii) Faculty Role ------Emphasis on largely reductionist---Ongoing effort to improve the

...................................... and theoretical research.....................quality of learning opportunities

......................................Minimization of teaching ....................Balance of theory,research and

......................................responsibilities and student ................practice and all contributions valued

......................................contact in general

(iii) Applicant/ ..........Quantitative indices givenprimary...Consideration of both quantitative and

Student .................... consideration....................................... qualitative dimensions

Evaluation

...................................................................................................Motivation, maturity, judgement, inter-

...................................................................................................personal skills, experience personal

.................................................................................................. growth and career path given value etc.

(iv) Emphasis............Functional course work,...................People and process; theory and practice

................................... methodology, technology,

....................................planning, budgeting, controlling

...................................Progress measured in terms of ..........Increase of discipline, development of

...................................plant/equipment growth, pages.......... creativity

...................................of faculty publication

...................................Number of offers and starting .............Judgment,vision, ethics

...................................salaries of graduates

...................................Ranking in surveys by popular............Inter-personal skills

................................... periodicals

......................................................................................................Planning of technology and human

..................................................................................................... needs in organizational settings

......................................................................................................Progress measured in terms of human

......................................................................................................development and the motivation and

......................................................................................................ability of participants

.......................................................................................................Faculty and staff to contribute in a

.......................................................................................................variety of important ways in their

.......................................................................................................organizations and communities

Culture, Philosophy and Values

(i) Student Motivation........grades, competition, degrees,..........desire to learn, develop potential and

.......................................... job opportunities ............................contribute to organization and society

(ii)Faculty Motivation.......money, reputation, competition......in addition to traditional promotion/salary

........................................ for rank and resources .....................goals, desire to Learn, develop potential, assist
.................................................................................................Participants in developing their full potentials

.................................................................................................and contribute to society

(iii) Learning mastery .....academic performance, of facts.......... self-development, active participation

........................................and ability to recall painful, ...............and involvement judgement, common

........................................an accumulation of classroom ............sense creativity and breadth of

........................................informationdiscriminated and .......... perspective a complex, dynamic,
........................................evaluated by faculty...........................interactive process that occurs

..................................................................................................throughout life in a variety of contexts

(iv) Human .................... students, faculty and staff don’t.......... people want to grow, realize

...................................... want to work, can’t be trusted ............their potentials, assume responsibility

.......................................and require close supervision............ for their efforts, and co-operate

.......................................hierachical, adversarial relations. ......in problem in solving, decision
..................................................................................................making and implementation

Organizational Structure/Climate

Higher education........ Higher education is viewed as a life-time teaching

largely confined..........process taking place in an alliance

to the universities ..... of all stake-holders

..................................Tendency toward hierarchical ..................Flat, collegial organization with strong

...................................bureaucracy, with specialized highly....... stake-holder’s involvement in planning

..................................structured academic departments and.....decision making and implementation

..................................positions defined in writing and fixed.......Power and rewards more evenly

.................................. in time, centralized planning and ............distributed to reflect variety of contributions

..................................performance measurement, bottom line.

....................................measures of efficiency ............................information shared both verbally

...................................predominate most ...................................and in writing, communication up,

...................................communications in writing ...................... down across the organizationgoal sharing,

....................................from the top down criticism, ..................team learning and research involving

...................................competition, alienation and ....................all stake holders and cutting across

...................................adversarial relations among ...................disciplines to create a more open

...................................students, faculty, staff ............................and collaborative environment

...................................administrators and other stake-holders ..

Both the traditional teaching as well as models of distance education are engaged in enhancing the technical content of an individual in the development of his self. But the final outcomes of any educational system, more so even the distance education model is deficient on account of preparing the individual for earning a livelihood in any organization when even the employers today are generally using their own training and career development programmes to shape employees. Our graduates or even postgraduates coming out of any of the stream either through traditional model or through distance education model are not found fit to resume their responsibilities from day one onwards immediately after they are engaged for employment.

Many personnel managers believe that prior work experience of a casual or short term nature is not enough to give management students a feel for the real world of business. The statement like ‘let them learn at someone else’s expense – we will get them on rebound’ is generally heard from the majority of employers. Employers are generally using their own management training and career development programmes to shape their employees. In the light of this wider gap in management education, the out-comes of any management education programmes could be classified into the following five categories.

· Analytical Skills
· Technical Content
· Macro Business Perspective
· People’s Skills and
· A realistic view of Organizational Life

Let us discuss briefly each one of them:

Analytical Skills concern problems identification and solution, assessment, selection and use of information and critical thinking. The focus here is on ‘the general ability to sort through data and select the most useful data to solve management problems’ and on ‘ the ability to select critical points from a vast collection of data’. Other aspects of analytical skills concern ‘training in how to approach a problem’, and ‘ability to isolate problems and opportunities’.

Technical Content refers to material covered in the functional areas such as Finance, Marketing and Production. It also includes the quantitative skills gained in Statistics and Computer Courses. At a minimum, technical content entails ‘ learning the business language and knowing enough about Finance and Accounting … to work with Specialists’. Of course, technical content also includes various specialties of the functional area of production viz. different branches of engineering like mechanical, production, civil, architecture, electronics, electrical, metallurgical, aeronautical, chemical and many more.

Macro Business Perspective refers to the gaining of an appreciation of how the various business functions (such as finance, marketing and production) fit together; as well as of technical and strategic integration. It refers to gaining ‘a broad perspective’, skills in ‘developing overall business strategy’ and an understanding of ‘how the functions of an organization tie together’.

People Skills include the abilities to build effective relationships, work in groups, influence without formal authority and communicate both in person and in writing . The ability to build and maintain lateral relationships as well as relationships with superiors and subordinates is critical. The ability to influence without formal authority is necessary in both interpersonal and group contexts. ‘One thing that is not taught is how to relate to the support staff, how to ask to have done something done for you’. ‘The problem is not so much in figuring out what to do as in figuring out how to accomplish it with and through other people’. Working in groups requires the abilities to function as both a team member and to run effective meetings.

Communication skills did not emerge as a separate category. Instead, informal communications came up in the context of a particular type of relationship or task (interpersonal or group). As a result, communication skills have been considered as part of people skills rather than as abstracted from the context in which they occur. While the formal communication skills of making presentations and writing report or memos can be taught separately from people skills or informal communications, they did not emerge as a significant category.

A Realistic View of Organizational Life is the final category of any Management Educational programme’s outcomes. Let us examine this category in depth.

Overall, gaining a realistic view refers to gaining an appreciation of the rhythms and feeling of daily life in a work organization, especially as contrasted with a school environment. This category is distinct from people skills, as is clear from its themes:

(i)Uncertainty (ii) Change (iii) Nature of tasks (iv) decision-making realities and (v) culture

The first theme of organizational realism is uncertainty. Ambiguity is prevalent; often many meanings are possible, with multiple interpretations.

The second theme is change. Unplanned change is constant, planned change is slow and resistance is prevalent, if not always reasonable:’ Most managers are reluctant to change…The real world generally moves very slow’. ‘Things don’t change rapidly, and your power to change things is limited’.

The third theme concerns the nature of tasks, which are often fragmented, repetitive and boring. Time pressures are extreme and interdependency is usually given. Some sample responses given here illustrate this: ‘More boring and meaningless tasks would have better prepared me for what I do’. ‘Work is not school. Activities in a company tend to be relatively unsophisticated but they demand common sense’. ‘You have to learn to work within realistic time constraints’

A fourth theme concerns decision-making realities. Organizational rationality entails politics and history. ‘ The political aspect of the business world is very important’. ‘There needs to be more emphasis on deal making (and) on being entrepreneurial in large organization’, as well as on ‘ informal networks, how politics work, nuances of power plays’.

The final theme of organizational realism is culture. Official policies are different from standard operating procedures. Managers need to know how to read norms and interpret work group values.

Together these themes represent the content about which a realistic view is needed. Thus there is a significant gap between expectations and realities of a human organization vis-à-vis the outcomes of any management educational programme.

Industry and universities are today engaged in a wide variety of co-operative exchanges, activities and collaborative research through University Industry Interaction programmes. The Industry is making distinctions between passive training and active learning. Universities are being termed as learning organizations with emphasis on a balanced synergistic relationship between technology and people influenced by modern management practices such as total quality management which also employ a balanced human and technological systems framework.

Table 2 clearly shows some of the values of educational system vis-à-vis values of
business.

Table 2: Educational Values vis-à-vis Business Values

Educational Values------------------------------Business Values

Collegiality-------------------------------------------------------------Competitive Individualism

as sharer of circumstances with -----------------------------------self-reliance and initiative
relationships of trust and confidence

flat organizations with decision –making-------------------------entrepreneurial spirit

characterized by reason

participation of those affected -------------------------------------winning optimism

consensus building ---------------------------------------------------innovation

shared governance --------------------------------------------------freedom

sharing of individual and -------------------------------------------independence

organizational purposes and goals

Education as an end ---------------------------------------------Productivity and profits as an end

open ended, lifelong process founded upon -------------profits and productivity as measures of achievement

personal and community responsibility -----------------and means to economic gain and power

questions are as important as answers

*******************Character development *********************

independence judgement -------------------------------bottom line results
Market and Shareholder focus -------------------------Shareholder and Market Shareholder focus
principled conduct --------------------------------------creation of demand through advertising
ethics of care ----------------------------------------------technology, improvement, styling and quality

fairness---------------------------------------------------- fostering of materialism in customers

social responsibility regard for the community

***********************************Linear Rationality *********************

authenticity in self- presentation -------------------------------------quantification of progress
Critical Understanding -------------------------------------------------Specific, measurable goals
development of analytical thinking abilities -----------------------sequential and linearplanning and problem

......................................................................... ......................solving (i.e. standardise, sub-divide, specialise
reflection communication
breadth of perspectives:

holistic, cultural, historical, political, ecological

********************************Competitive activism ***************

qualitative judgment --------------------------------------------aggressive activism adversarial competitiveness

*********************************Personal and Social Liberation***********

education as the foundation of a democratic society------winning to be number one

*********************************Economies of time **********************

transcendence of habit, routine, customer, convention ---time as money
critique of authority ---------------------------------------------emphasis on short term(i.e. quick fix, fast track,

openness to challenge and change ----------------------------reduction of cycle time)

Conclusions and Policy Implications

It is well established that teaching and learning are not one and the same (Table-1). At present, higher education is premised on the simplistic belief that a student who passed a course has learnt the subject matter. The bottom-line expectations of the Educational Institution, the student and the employer have, hopefully been satisfied. But learning is much more a complex process than this. It involves, among other things, the integration of interrelated experiences and conceptualization, not to mention creative new applications.

In reality neither the educational institution nor the student and the employer are satisfied of the final outcome. If educational institutions are to compete in a world of accelerated change, they must create attitudes towards learning that reflect breadth of perspective and the long term. They should also include training and development as effectively as their course contents in the real work like situations. If our distance education institutions increasingly model themselves, their curricula and their pedagogies after traditional educational structures and values, who will prepare leaders and managers for the private and public sector organizations and scholars of the next millennium? How can students learn to be comfortable with uncertainty and diversity of viewpoint, to be undaunted by the inevitability of occasional setbacks, and to be challenged by opportunities to continue learning and collaborating? How can our industry survive for long and globally competitive without the support of indigenous scientific innovations backed by efficient innovative manpower supplied by institutions of higher learning?


There are no simple answers to these questions. However, an educational culture dominated by short-term, bottom-line values is unlikely to offer the open, nurturing environment necessary for such explorations. It is further necessary to shape our Management Educational Values to the tune of Business Values (Table-2) in order to bridge the widening gap between passive training and active learning so that fruits of scientific advancement are rapidly available to the public at large. Further, if the distance education is to continue its contribution to the development of tomorrow’s leaders, managers and scholars, the institutions imparting distance education must retain a meaningful degree of autonomy in order to provide a place where all ideas – orthodox as well as unorthodox – are assured free expression and discussion and where learning, practical training in a work-like situation and research will dominate the agenda of activities.