The Indian School of Business, ISB, within a few years of its launch was ranked 20th among global B-schools by the Financial Times. ISB's Dean M Rammohan Rao was in Mumbai recently to announce a three-year programme with Citi to develop and recommend measures that will promote financial inclusion and improve capital market access for small investors and enterprises.

Dean Rao spoke with rediff.com's Prasanna D.Zore on ISB's new programmes, their unique selling proportion, placement programme, their recently launched pre-doctoral programme and dearth of quality faculty crunch faced by Indian management schools.

Admissions at the ISB

Our academic year starts in April every year. This year we already have a batch of 440 students for the one-year post graduate programme.

For the next year admissions we have thought of a process wherein our admission group is getting active, they are seeing whether we should be participating in the world MBA tour to get more foreign students. Get some more scholarships for the students and the whole issue of visiting schools and colleges in tier II cities so that two-three years later they can think of joining the ISB.

Any additional programme plans?

As of now we are offering only one-year intensive post graduate programme across six sections. One-two years down the road we are planning to start some part-time programmes.

We are starting the pre-doctoral programme this year whereby we will get people who are interested in pursuing a doctorate but may not be sure if they have appropriate background. We will offer them foundation courses at the ISB and they will also works with faculty in terms of research.

It will be a two-year course. Later those who want to pursue PhD will apply to US universities and other foreign universities. The better ones will be recommended by us. Though there is no guarantee that they will get admission but I am sure if they do well in their pre-doctoral programme it will hold them in good stead.

ISB's unique selling proposition

There are several things. The first is the strong programme that we have about the regular and visiting faculty and the rich research experience that they bring to their classroom. They bring the latest research findings into the classroom.

The other USP is the duration of our programmes. The one is of course a 51-week programme � a rigorous and demanding programme � where the students have to take only a one-year leave from their employers. The average work experience of our students at ISB is two years. This helps us to get a very diverse set of students. They learn not only inside the classroom but also when these diverse set of people interact with each other. They work in teams and this sharing helps them to learn from each others experiences.

Ultimately, we get very brilliant students with high GMAT scores, who after passing our programme get very good placement offers.

The placement season last year

It was absolutely terrific. Our students this year got an average placement package of Rs 19.5 lakh. Importantly, all 440 students got placements in companies across India and the US and Europe. Our students found good offers across investment banking, manufacturing, financial services and pharma sectors to name just a few.

One of our students got an annual package of $ 151,000 from a US company.

Any plans of fee hike in April 2009?

We may have to align our fees in tune with the increase in inflation. We may hike our fees next year by 6-7 per cent however the exact figure is not yet decided upon.

Your views on lack of quality faculty

Even now we ask this question: where are the good teachers? Getting quality faculty is the biggest problem in India. Though there is a sincere attempt to breach that gap it will take some time. There is an acute shortage of quality faculty.

Like everybody else we are also facing that crunch. Of course, we operate is a slightly different market in the sense that we try to get people having a research-oriented background. In this field opportunities are more in Singapore, Hong Kong, US etc. So we are competing with schools in these geographies to get good teachers.