Interview by Yash Panchal

shakeel

Prof. (Dr.) Shakeel Ahmed is the Director at PIMSE Pune. He holds a teaching experience of more than 35 years in the academic sector. He has 11 years’ experience as a Vice Principal. His educational qualifications include BA Economics, MA Economics, MPM, M.Phil and Ph.D. He has 7 books published to his credit.

Dr. Ahmed has presented research papers in international seminars, conferences,and workshops. He is the recipient of “Best Teacher Award” by Uttar Bhartiya Sangh in 2008. He got an award for “Commendable Social Work” in the areas of Education, National Integration and Youth Development in 2011 by an NGO, New Delhi.

Factors which made Dr. Ahmed more inclined towards the educational sector

Being 37 years in the academic field and almost 12 years in administration, I have met a number of people and students as well, this has motivated me to keep myself busy in an academic institution.

The leadership style of spreading education

To attract more academically poor students to give more education because what I find in Pune, we have a number of minority students who are not only academically poor but financially poor too. So, to attract these students and put in the field of management and education is my philosophy.

Keeping a dynamic approach toward both students and faculty development

I am staging to get excellence in academic and providing high quality outstanding creating education environment for my faculty members and my students so that if the environment is very conducive and encouraging, we all can work more in a very better fashion.

Inculcating the proverb “If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together” in the work culture at PIMSE

It’s true, if you work alone, you cannot achieve the objectives but if you work together you can work for long time and can achieve my objective also with how to provide good education to the financially poor students and academically poor students.

Making the MBA curriculum at minimum cost and providing scholarships to the minorities

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the Government of India and the Government of Maharashtra for providing this minority scholarship to the Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains, etc. We aren’t providing a scholarship, it’s the Government which is doing so. In whole Pune city, you will find that our fees are 80,000 INR for MBA and 50,000 INR for MBA IT and HRD, which is the lowest in the city. So, we are trying to give the best education by keeping our fees very less.

The growth of students through placement opportunities available at PIMSE

We have one placement officer, Mr. Lionel D’Mello and he is trying his best to contact with the industry as much as possible. He is inviting the Vice Presidents of different companies. Last time, we invited Ms. Manasi Kirloskar and this year Mrs.Anu Aga visited the institute. Mr. D’Mello is also trying to contact Mrs. Poonawala, so he contacts office bearers of the different companies so that we can give the best placements.

Important skills required for a student to become a successful Management aspirant

We have planned this year to start compulsory courses and skill courses approved by Government of India. I believe students are not getting good placement in the market because they are weak in English. So, we are trying this time to start spoken English courses which can boost the morale of students.

Adopting the changes in the educational sector to grow over a period of time

I don’t find teaching in class is much more important, what I feel is that students should be given more training, presentations out of the class. I also find that students are writing their project files and each student is writing project which isn’t similar to other students. In the MBA curriculum, a student writes a project which is mostly similar to other ones which aren’t very creative. So, if a student has been given a project, it shouldn’t be similar to someone else because it can also help students in getting a job in different companies.

Plans for future growth and expansion of the institution

We are planning to purchase a land and we want to shift from the current campus because we aren’t able to accommodate more students. We aren’t able to start new courses because of lack of infrastructure, so we are planning to shift to another place so that we can also plan hostel for students, we can also plan extra-curricular activities and sports. If we get land outside, we will implement all these things.

Suggestions for the youth and aspiring students

I think students should imbibe more values, communication skills because nowadays students are busy on social media platform like WhatsApp. So, students need to learn to keep out of social media and they should learn more social values and other values. There should also be some kind of courses on value-based education.