Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the 20th anniversary celebrations of Indian School of Business (ISB) and the graduation ceremony of its Post-Graduate Programme Class of 2022 here on May 26.
“ISB is incredibly privileged and honoured the Prime Minister will be coming for the celebrations. This will be the first joint graduation ceremony of our Hyderabad and Mohali campuses,” Dean Madan Pillutla said on Monday.
“We have around 900 students across the campuses and the students from Mohali will be flying here to listen to the Prime Minister,” he said. During his visit to the campus, expected to last an hour, Mr.Modi will plant a sapling, unveil a commemorative plaque and release the ISB MyStamp and Special Cover. He will also award medals to the academic scholars of excellence.
ISB was inaugurated by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former presidents Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee attended its 5th, 10th and 15th year anniversary celebrations respectively.
To queries, the Dean said Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region G.Kishan Reddy are among those invited. Since Mr. Rao will be away from the city, he has wished the best for the event and will be deputing a senior Cabinet minister.
Top ranking
Meanwhile, ISB has been placed 1st in India and 38th globally in the Financial Times Executive Education Custom Programmes rankings released on Monday.
Deputy Dean – Executive Education and Digital Initiatives Deepa Mani said, “ISB Executive Education creates and delivers custom learning solutions that address diverse organisations' business challenges and strategic needs in the private and public sectors.”
On the "Future Use" parameter, which is defined as the likelihood that clients would reuse the same school for other customised programmes in the future, ISB has been ranked 7th globally. She said as knowledge partner of Capacity Building Commission of India, the empanelled agency to train bureaucrats, ISB has started offering programmes for officials. It is not limited to training, but includes policy research leveraging ISB’s expertise in research and impact assessment studies.
“We are going beyond the training to assess the impacts of training, enable evidence backed policy making and also to create content case studies, simulation... both in [public] enterprises and government [services and departments],” she said.
On whether the popularity of digital delivery channels will continue even after the pandemic, Ms. Mani said what is becoming clear is it will not be pure online or pure offline. There is preference for hybrid learning or blended learning. Technology, however, has enabled to reach segments that previously were inaccessible and not possible to reach.