Here is my interpretation of one of Samba's various bursts of inspiration. An abstract idea whose viability, logistics, implementation etc. need to be worked out.
We know that a lot of effort goes into the preparation for these competitive exams; out of which only the top 2% or so make it in to IITs, IIMs etc. Out of say every 100 candidates that takes each exam, 2 of them actually make it in, and so, in some sense, their efforts are not wasted. And I will assume that around 40 of them just took it up as a part of their regular path, and weren't really serious about them. These numbers can be inaccurate; but bear with me.
The real wasted effort lies in those 50 of them, who actually put in a lot of effort, and out of them, there are at least 10 of them who almost as good as the 2 of them that get in, but just cannot make it in because the number of seats are limited. Now, the question is: can this effort be harnessed to do something good? something profitable? Can the exam structure or the interview structure be changed to do this?
One concrete implementation of this idea. The top few percentile people from CAT are called in for a GD/PI stage, where they are put against each other, and are evaluated for managerial potential, stress, ability to think on their feet etc. One idea is to divide them into chunks, and assign them to random villages in the rural heartland of India. Their job is to stay in these villages for a week (along with an official from the IIMs), and involve themselves in some constructive activity. Call this a real case study as opposed to the arm-chair variety that gets done right now.
This suggestion is not all that preposterous for few reasons
- Candidates are quite serious about their admissions and an IIM admit is a great incentive.
- Its more realistic than an arm-chair case study because real results can be evaluated giving better candidates to these institutes.
- The candidates are smart and some real work that might be useful to these villages can be carried out.
- As CAT filtering has already been carried out, we have a more manageable number of people.
Of course, all these details, and the basic idea itself are up for debate, and thats why the posting :) The rationale behind this thinking is to somehow harness the efforts and the incentives that are a part of this big circus.
Any ideas? problems? possibilities?
2 comments:
First and foremost, CAT is an exam.
Agreed it is an "MBA exam" but the career is so very lucrative that a large number of people want to be a part of it.And IIMs as an authority would want smooth flow of exams.Prospective rich candidates may bribe their way to the IIM.
Although it is a revenue earning and good for villages why would IIMs want to help villages , in the first case. They are always finding ways to trick the government and they wouldnt want to spend a penny on the villages because it does incur a little extra cost on them.
Second, it is an ego question of The IAS officers and the collectors who are posted in the rural areas.
Why would they ever let anyone (especially the NGOs who think it is their duty to find fault with any of the civil governments)
And finally it is additional cost compared to arm-chair.
>> As CAT filtering has already been carried out, we have a more manageable number of people.
Its true that the number of people is more manageable, but is this the right subset?! Is there any correlation between the skills that the CAT is supposedly testing to the skills that are required for whatever else you've mentioned? I still think that a lot of deserving candidates would miss out only because of the non-indicative toughness of CAT.
But the idea about doing something at the grassroots is good...something that can be extended to engineering as well - attempt to use each one's branch to do something constructive (akin to the stint that MBBS people go through)
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