India's top B-schools syllabus to include lessons learnt from COVID-19

The outbreak of novel coronavirus and lockdown imposed to control the spread of the contagious disease led to severe health and economic crisis in India.

The outbreak of novel coronavirus and lockdown imposed to control the spread of the contagious disease led to severe health and economic crisis in India. From a daily wage earner to a top industrialist, everyone got affected by the pandemic. The country’s top business schools believe that there are lessons to be learned from the widespread disruption wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prominent business schools such as Indian Institutes of Management-Ahmedabad, IIM-Calcutta, IIM-Lucknow, IIM-Indore, XLRI and MDI Gurgaon are mulling to revise this` year’s curriculum to incorporate learnings from the pandemic into nearly all subjects taught in an MBA programme, from economics and strategy to human resources and supply chains.

Starting this summer, IIM-A introduced a macroeconomics course which includes examples such as the Supreme Court’s capping of Covid-19 testing to discuss price controls and infection transmission to include the idea of ‘externalities’.
Talking about the introduction of the course, associate professor of economics, IIM-A, Tarun Jain stated, “Investments in public health facilities will be discussed as part of the investment in public goods.”

It’s the first time ever that courses are being tweaked to reflect the changing reality in the society.

According to the source, Ajay Garg, IIM Lucknow PGP chairman revealed that his B-school is redesigning the curriculum that includes lessons such as financial markets, macroeconomics, strategic management, marketing and HR.

XLRI, which is known for its HR-focused course, said it will include lessons on how workplaces and their dynamics are changing quickly. The dean, academics, XLRI, Ashis K Pani said, “It will be interesting to study how HR has to realign itself to the evolving situation due to the pandemic.”

At IIM Jammu, the faculty is all set to prepare students for all sorts of unexpected circumstances that can affect businesses. BS Sahay, Director, IIM Jammu, said, “We have to teach students that business is not what’s normal alone – it’s also extraordinary situations like natural disasters and epidemics.”
Whereas in MDI Gurgaon, Students will now discuss the effect of crashing oil prices and learn the history of other great pandemics like the Great Plague of the 14th century BC and the Spanish Flu of the early 20th century.

However, IIM Raipur has a different thought on changing the curriculum. The director of the institute Bharat Bhasker said, “Lessons on Covid-19 will be included, but only after we have conquered the pandemic. Management lessons are done only after arriving at success or failure.”

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