Making or Exercising a Career Choice!!!

Dear All

I find Sunil's point really interesting and it has prompted the somnolent horses in my brains to wrestle!!

Sentiments apart I have tried to make a case study out of these rural institutions viz

IRMA,TISS, IIFM,XISS as development insitutes in india

IRMA, MANAGE, IIMA, Agri-biz, XIMB etc as agri-business institutes in india

ISS, Hague, IDS sussex etc, various other international development courses elsewhere

(am clubbing IRMA in both brackets to prevent any bickering at this point of the analysis)

Look at their alumnii, the kind of organisation they created or worked with and their mandate.

They were all trying to correct some ERRATA in the prevalent society as some sections, mostly those with information assymetry (agrarian and tribal populations) are getting left out. We end up calling them rural as they are seen as distinct from well informed urbane populations that is more used to the traditional forms of organisations (as mentioned in brackets)

Markets are no final solutions (Companies) - lets think of alternatives like cooperatives, micro-enterprises, etc.

Service Sector like Banking etc are ineffective for the bottom of the pyramid - lets think of alternate delivery mechanism like SHGs, MFIs etc.

The State has miserably failed to reach the marginalised (bureaucracy) - Lets try and correct the capabilities and create models of excellence through small but flexible initiatives through Non-Govt Orgs.

THE PROBLEM NOW - The TRADITIONAL forms of organisation known to the society tend to be structured, hierarchical and tend to pay well and hence are hugely attractive to a middle class person who only had enough money to finish the studies but not enough to start his own business or enterprise.

(seperate delivery mechanism).

THE NEW ENTRANT - is confronted towards choice of an ORGANISATIONAL FORM. I have interacted with hundreds of students from IRMA, IIFM, TISS and other International Development students and even IRMA's recent batches and each time, this was the single biggest confusion that confronts them - What organisational formshould I choose?

IRMA's course content caters to cooperatives, collective action oriented NGOs on one hand and even financial management, agri-business jobs presently but the training segments quickly build up capabilites to work in the alternative organisational forms.

The CAREER OPTIONS available allure him to the traditional forms of organisations which are secure but at the same time do not differentiate from other B-Schools.

So what is the critical determining factor - Your OWN PERSONALITY - Choices to either enter or resist the traditional organisational forms depend upon one's family/financial background, parental pressure, geographical preferences, age, marital status etc etc.

What more can these Institutes do to CHANGE/MODIFY such choice making process -

Help the student identify his or her own interest areas and remove his information assymmetry about the Rural Sector that awaits b clearly identifying options available in terms of organisational forms and clearly spell out sectoral choices available. (like enterprise development, microfinance, NRM etc.) and may be even ways of doing it - through research, implementation, funding, activism, commerical transactions etc. which characterise the alternate organisational forms and which the general public at large is complete unaware of !!!

I hope this case analysis doesn't get a big F from the esteemed Alumniii.

Cheerz

Vivek

PRM 23