We Need To Recognise That Change Is Constant

Despite the inclusion of technology in education and in industry, good management courses would still have programmes that focus on ‘shaping the mind’

- G Raghuram

According to the recent annual application trends survey of the Graduate Management Admission Council, which conducts the GMAT, MBA applications have gone up for Asia-Pacific, Canada and European regions, while MBA colleges in the United States saw a nearly 7 percent decline. This included a 1.8 percent dip in domestic application volume and a 10.5 percent drop in international volume.

B-schools of the Asia-Pacific region, meanwhile, saw an 8.9 percent increase, while Canada realised a 7.7 percent growth and Europe saw a 3.2 percent increase in applications. Growth in the Canadian and European regions derive largely from an increase in international applications, while domestic growth is fuelling the increase in Asia-Pacific.

It should be noted that this survey, being related to more than 200 leading graduate B-schools in the world, addresses itself to higher-end management schools, at least in India.

The reduction in international applicants to the US is primarily because of its political situation, which is fuelling growth of applications into Canada and Europe.

Of course, domestic applications are also marginally declining in the US, which is both a reflection of maturity in the economy and growth being more in the technical (artificial intelligence/machine learning) and creative domains, which is characteristic of an advanced economy.

The same premise would be valid for emerging economies in the Asia-Pacific region, where growth is still fuelled by economic activity that needs management expertise.