The Board of Governors of Praxis Business School participates in a Panel Discussion on the occasion of its convocation - Honoring Class of 09 & Class of10

Kolkata witnessed the top stratum of corporate leaders and honchos in town to discuss a smoldering concern that faces management education – ‘B-schools are reducing themselves to being glorified placement agencies’ at a Panel Discussion organized by Praxis Business School.

“We at Praxis aim to produce ‘industry-ready’ graduates, and are constantly striving to achieve excellence in everything we do and encourage our students to endeavour for the same. Praxis has reached an important milestone as we award and congratulate our students who have successfully completed the management program.” said Prof. Srinivas Govindrajan, Dean, Praxis.

The Panel Discussion was organized to celebrate this special occasion.

The illustrious panel comprised

Mr. Santosh Desai, MD & CEO of Future Brands Limited
Mr. K. Dasaratharaman, President of Specialities Business, Spencer’s Retail
Mr. Shankar Chatterjee, Managing Director of Bertling Logistics
Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee, Faculty, VG-SOM, IIT KGP and Praxis


The session was moderated by Prof. Charanpreet Singh, Associate Dean of Praxis. Santosh Desai, K. Dasaratharaman and Shankar Chatterjee are all members of the Board of Governors of Praxis.

The discussion focused on the need for the Business Schools in the country to execute their prime responsibility – imparting of a good quality, relevant education – and to not operate as agencies merely facilitating job search. The trend is to measure the success of a B-school by its published placement record and the nature of the assurances it makes to the student community in this regard. While there is an ever-increasing focus on immediate ROI and placement statistics, somewhere the fundamental function of a B-school is losing its importance. The panel deliberated on the key attributes that make a good B-school great – the quality of the faculty, the pedagogy, the learning environment, the effective use of technology, industry-interface and involvement etc. Placements would be a natural outcome if these factors are in place – hence students should take a close look at these aspects while choosing a B-school; after all, the education they receive here should be of benefit throughout their career.

“B-schools should be assessed on the basis of their contribution to knowledge creation and on the basis of the contributions by their faculty and alumni to industry and society at large. Higher education institutions need to create processes to facilitate knowledge sharing, collaborative learning, innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Mr. Kamlesh Sajnani, Chairman of the Board of Governors.

About Praxis Business School

Praxis, a word of Greek origin meaning the translation of a theory or idea into action, defines the philosophy of the Business School set up in Kolkata. Praxis aims to produce ‘industry-ready’ professionals and everything it does is aligned to this mission. It believes that its job is to arm the students with the knowledge and skills that will enable them to perform well in the industry.

Faculty with a rich blend of academic pedigree and industry experience

Praxis is a serious institution where academics are a priority. In order to ensure academic excellence, Praxis sought inputs from XLRI in its initial years. It has built an excellent faculty team that has a fine blend of academic pedigree and industry experience. These are people who have trained themselves at the best Indian and global institutes (the IITs, IIMs, XLRI. Universities of Dallas and Iowa) before being at the highest decision making levels at corporates such as IBM, HP, PwC, J P Morgan, MAA Bozell, Tata Steel, CTS, Spencer’s.

Industry participation in curriculum design and delivery

The Praxis team has forged partnerships with top corporates to co-design and co-deliver courses. In addition to regular specializations like Finance, Marketing, HR, IT & Operations, Praxis also offers courses in areas of concentration. The curriculum for areas of concentration like Risk & Treasury Management and Retail Strategy have evolved out of workshops conducted by Praxis faculty with industry experts from organisations such as Spencer’s, Tata Steel, Starmark and ICICI bank.

Leveraging Pedagogy for Career Building

The pedagogy at Praxis encourages students to think rather than learn by rote. Most examinations are open-book. This challenges the student to apply concepts in simulation of real-life situations. Each course requires the students to participate in projects, make presentations and solve case-study-based problems. And the soft-skills training is an integral part of the program. Such pedagogy helps develop a probing mindset. So in real-life situations while taking strategic decisions in the face of uncertainty—it's this right mindset that takes one through.

Fully residential program - Learning Enabler

The Praxis team also believes that a major part of the learning happens, paradoxically, outside the classroom while interacting with peers – at heated discussions in the cafeteria, hostel rooms and library. It has thus consciously sought and achieved diversity in its student community. It offers a fully residential program, with a well equipped and professionally run campus, in order to attract students from across the country.



KK@Praxis – Innovation in knowledge management



Praxis has created something unique in the Indian MBA education domain that enables walking the talk on boundary –less knowledge sharing. Kollaborative Klassroom is a private social network for its students, faculty and industry. It facilitates the creation and storage of intellectual property– for the Praxis community and the world at large to see, learn from, comment upon and discuss

Industry endorses Praxis

The endorsement of Praxis by the industry is reflected in its quality of placements. Companies like PwC (Management Consultancy), Hewlett Packard, Bertling Logistics, ITC, E&Y, KPMG, Future Groups, Saint Gobain Grant Thornton, Godrej Sara Lee, UBS, Titan, Future Brands, ICICI (Treasury and Risk), Axis Bank (Capital markets), HSBC Analytics, Darashaw, AMI-Partners, 3M, Times of Money, NSE have visited Praxis for summer and final placements. Elaborating on such an impressive record, Prof. Govindrajan Srinivas, Dean says, “At Praxis, placement is not a stand-alone activity. It is a natural fall-out of doing the right things.”

An industry-facing curriculum, a pedagogy that teaches students not what to think but how to think, an attitude that makes knowledge sharing a part of the DNA, an infrastructure that leverages technology to enable learning- all these make Praxis a B-School that creates leaders for tomorrow’s world.

Praxis Business School
Bakrahat Road, 24 Parganas (South),
P.O. Rasapunja,
Kolkata- 700104

This release was published on openPR.