Quality of Management Education and its Determinants - A Study of Business Schools of Punjab

The present study is an endeavour to assess the quality of management education prevailing in Punjab and to identify the factors affecting it. A sample of 200 faculty members teaching in management institutes in Punjab was examined for the said purpose. It has been found that management education being imparted in management institutes in Punjab is of average quality. The factor analysis has identified nine factors; 'Focus on class room teaching and overburdened inadequate faculty', 'Ineffective training of the students', 'Lack of emphasis on extra-curricular activities', 'Academic oriented faculty and weak interface with industry', 'Limited and theory-oriented courses', 'Lack of objective and transparent internal assessment system', 'Lack of managerial aptitude among students', 'Inactive alumni associations' and 'Ineffective admission criterion' representing various underlying dimensions which might be affecting the quality of management education in Punjab. All the nine factors identified have been found associated significantly negatively with the dependent variable i.e. quality of management education in Punjab. Partial correlations revealed 'lack of emphasis on extra-curricular activities' as the most significant factor influencing the quality of management education, followed by 'lack of objective and transparent internal assessment system', 'inactive alumni associations' and 'focus on class room teaching and overburdened and inadequate faculty'. Finally, Regression analysis has predicted that 'lack of emphasis on extra-curricular activities', 'lack of objective and transparent internal assessment system', 'inactive alumni associations' and 'focus on class room teaching and overburdened and inadequate faculty' explained 61.3 per cent of the variance in quality of management education in Punjab.