A new class of young masters

The number of MBA students is soaring but some wonder if the big increase is affecting the value of the degree.

MBA students, from left, Ravi Teja, Jay Saini, Antra Rathod, Alok Rajput and Ankit Gupta, listening to a lecture on marketing.

Rajat Agarwal believes an MBA is the key to his corporate dreams. The 23-year-old from India has an engineering degree, but doesn't think it will be enough to help him scale his country's frenzied and crowded corporate ladder. So, like hundreds of other young people, he has enrolled in a master of business administration programme in the UAE to give himself an edge. "It will give me the extra leverage in knowledge. It will give me managerial skills. It will step up my level," says Mr Agarwal, who is studying at the branch campus of India's Institute of Management Technology (IMT) at Dubai International Academic City.

Once upon a time, the MBA was almost exclusively the domain of experienced managers who wanted to break into the top echelons of the corporate world. These days however, MBA students are more likely to be straight out of college, as Mr Agarwal is, or people with a few years of experience working in junior positions. To capitalise on the trend, many more universities rushed to offer such programmes, which teach a scientific approach to management. Some observers, however, say the proliferation of MBA programmes has lowered the value of the degree.

Zubair Hanslot, the academic director of the University of Bolton's branch campus in the Ras al Khaimah Free Zone, says an MBA or a similar postgraduate diploma has almost become a requirement for landing a top job in India. Students from the country are travelling here in large numbers, driving the growth in local MBA programmes. The MBA has become the most popular course since the University of Bolton opened its RAK campus in October. More than a quarter of its some 160 students are taking it.

"The economy of India has quadrupled in the past few years," he said. "It's a highly educated workforce and the next step from a degree is an MBA. A lot of employers in India and Pakistan won't let you into a management position without an MBA. "As there's a large expatriate population from there, that concept has spilt over into the Middle East. If they cannot get a good position here, they think they can always go back to home with an MBA."

IMT in Dubai has 370 students taking a two-year, full-time MBA, about 90 per cent of whom came from India. The institute plans soon to have as many as 500 MBA students and as many as 1,300 students enrolled in management courses, within four years. A number of other branches of western universities, including the Scotland-based Heriot-Watt University, and local universities such as UAE University, also offer MBAs.

Dr Farhad Rad-Serecht, 61, the director of the IMT branch, who set up MBA programmes in Paris, Madrid and Cyprus during the 1980s and 1990s, says the trend toward younger people taking the MBA degree has also occurred in Europe and the US, but that it is more pronounced in the subcontinent. "Typically now it's someone with three to four years of experience who considers the time is ripe to have a shift in his career," says Dr Rad-Serecht.

"In some parts of the world, including India and Pakistan, the average age is lower and the number of years' experience is lower. You're talking more about freshers. The MBA is now an entry into the corporate world." Sixty per cent of the current crop of students in IMT's MBA course had no work experience when they enrolled or have only been exposed to the corporate world through internships. All of which raises the question of whether the degree is in danger of being devalued.

Dr Rad-Serecht says the MBA has become "a commodity" and that more emphasis is now put on the college that granted it. "The prestige is not linked to the programme, but to the brand. If it's a prestigious institute it still carries a lot of weight." He says the skills taught to MBA students are vital to those with a technical background who would otherwise "not be fully equipped to perform at the corporate level".

"They need the in-depth knowledge of managerial skills. When people start working very early in their careers they would otherwise find limitations because of this lack of managerial education." Students too remain confident that an MBA will improve their career prospects - as long as it comes from the right university. "You tend to rise higher. If you want to get into the corporate world, you need an MBA from a good college," says Antra Rathod, 25, from India, a student at IMT who plans to settle in the UAE.