Interview by Pratyasha

NSHM Business School

Dr. Naveen Das is currently designated as the Director of NSHM School of Business & Management, Kolkata. His academic qualification includes a B.Tech. (Hons), PGDM (Operations & Marketing) and Ph.D. (Management). He has more than 27 years of corporate and academic experience, and has authored and presented many journal publications, conference proceedings and has several books to his credit. 

Apart from this, Dr. Das has been awarded by his alma mater, IIM Calcutta, for Academic Excellence. He was the Founding Dean and Director of IBS Business School and Associate Director of Indian School of Business. In an exclusive interview with collegedunia.com, he shares his views on the education industry and talks about his institute.

Experience in the education industry

I drifted to academics from the corporate world, purely for the love of learning and teaching. After eight years of stint in the corporate world, I joined academics, and have been now for more than two decades. To me, this is the best industry to work in primarily for two reasons: 

  • Independence to pursue your passion 
  • Immense opportunity for nation-building, since we work with the essential resource for tomorrow.

A leader should be empathetic and understanding

Leadership is about demonstrating what you preach, and I am a participative and collaborative leader. I have realized that the command and control style of leadership does not work in academics. Here, every individual is supposed to be responsible for the enhancement of the domain knowledge and the profession that feeds on it. Therefore, what is mainly required in a leader is Empathy and Understanding. They must channelize the diverse resources and human capabilities to achieve the goals of excellence for the Institution.

Challenges related to education, most of the institutes are facing

One of the foremost challenges that the education industry is facing is the mismatch of talent required and available. The last two decades have seen the decadence in general quality of education, though there have also been a few islands of excellence. Making potential students aware of quality without falling prey to the corporate-like promotion is an issue which most institutes may not accept overtly, but it remains a nagging one. Also, motivating faculty members through opportunities in research, and social contribution is one effective method to combat the issue. 

Read about NSHM Business School Courses & Fee

Methods opted to produce quality curriculum 

On boarding corporate leaders, teaching-learning process, and outreach programs have ensured that our teaching remains relevant to the most critical stakeholders of ours. Also, creating multiple opportunities for students to interface with the industry is done to keep the doing component of learning at par with the knowledge component. The college publishes joint research with the corporate leaders and makes the equal industry partners in evaluating student-projects. Apart from this, we listen to the needs of corporate in grooming our students for their future professional lives.

What are the top qualities that a student must possess?

The World Economic Forum has delineated the skills that are required to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. The job disruption will force humans, machines, and algorithms to integrate. If one looks at them closely, what emerges is a sweet balance between the right and left lobes. A student of the future needs to not only be useful in design-thinking and analytical skills but also must be creative and compassionate. S/he must also have a global mind set and a service mentality.

Ideal school environment and culture 

A perfect school environment and culture must stand firmly on three pillars – 

  • Collegial governance for managing knowledge workers
  • Academic independence to encourage research and excellence
  • Service-orientation in all the processes to ensure the quality of student service

With these ingredients, I think any average institution can aspire to be an excellent one.

Constituents involved in establishing a relationship with learners

Being an administrator, I believe the following factors contribute to building a positive relationship with the students:

  • Treating the student as junior partners in the professional pursuits 
  • Joint research with students
  • Treating students as matured individuals 
  • Listening to the voice of the students while delivering student services

Dr. Das views on placement opportunities

Seeing students blossom into contributing citizens through placement is a joy to most of us in the academic world. Though placement is vital for every student, it should not be the only aim for a student. Beyond a mere job, one should look at a career spanning a much longer time, where it is also expected that a student becomes a job-giver in the medium or long run. Developing entrepreneurial skills and service mentality is pushing the envelope further for a vast country like India.

Click here NSHM Business School Placement

Upcoming goals for the Institute

We are aiming to make the institute global in its outlook since in the days to come, competition from global institutions is imperative. Attracting and retaining star faculty members is another goal. Also, making the processes benchmarked against the best-in-class will be an essential task for the next few years.

Suggestions to young aspirants

The world is valuing any individual with emotional intelligence, leadership, and social influence as well as service orientation. These are not learned only within the four walls of a classroom. Hence, a student must treat the real world as the best teacher, and augment the lessons with the school delivered ones to be an active contributor to the Mother Earth.