Is management affecting technology?

CONGRATULATIONS TO the IIM graduates getting the gigantic start-up salary package! This attractive package and benefits have fascinated people so much in India that a management storm has started. Now undergraduates from various fields want to pursue their post graduation only in management. Not only commerce undergraduates but engineers, science graduates also seem to be eager to flow with the management stream.

I myself am an engineer. The placement record of the college is excellent with various multinationals as well as PSUs visiting the college. But in spite of having more than one job in top global companies the students are still inclined towards management.

The increasing deviation of engineers towards management is affecting the level of technology and research in the country. The records show that most of the students getting through the premier management institutes are engineers because of their good aptitude and mathematics.
Although they may argue that by acquiring the knowledge of both technology and management they can function in a much better way, in reality their technological knowledge is hardly utilised.

Knowledge hardly utilised

It is ironical to know that these students are also amongst the top students of their respective technical streams. They not only have good aptitude but good technical knowledge also.
This is evident from the fact that during interviews of the MBA entrance exams the technical knowledge of the applicants is also taken into account. But this knowledge is not utilised in a proper fashion and is not explored for carrying out any research work during their technical course.

The MBA aspiring students start their preparation one or two years before the exams. Many even join the various coaching classes. After that starts the time of bunking classes and devoting most of their time for the preparation for CAT and other MBA exams. The engineering course is studied only during the exam time. As a result no extra technical work or project is carried out. The ubiquitous reach of Internet has further solved their problem for the compulsory project work. The projects can be easily copied from the Internet.

The growing craze for management has led to the decline of the value of engineering. The engineering degree is becoming just an undergraduate course for the students so that they can have a good base for the postgraduate management course.

Only students who are not considered good enough for industry or B-Schools (although there are a few exceptions) opt for M. Tech. or M Sc. As a result not only engineering but also the quality of teaching has declined to a large extent. This is because teaching as a profession is considered the last option now.

The Indian economy is now growing at a rate of around 8 per cent in which industrial growth is playing a vital role. But the facts are that this growth is mainly in the service sector. The core sectors of manufacturing, electronics, R&D, etc., are not growing on a par with the IT sector. A large part of this problem stems from the management mania.

India is producing world-class managers but our engineers are not globally competitive in the core sectors. That is why we do not have even a single chip manufacturing company in the country. If India were to become a developed country this sectional imbalance has to be corrected which is possible by improving the quality of technical education and making engineering and teaching more attractive.

If a question arose "what will happen when all the engineers will become managers," the answer would be "managers will lose their value."