Blogs:

The consumer-like treatment of students by business schools is quite the talk at this point in time, particularly with a recent article in The Chicago Tribune bringing it up. It is a continuing debate, as they describe it, over whether students must have a higher say in what they are taught and how they are judged.

While fact remains that schooling is primarily for education and apply the education and the knowledge gained in a position where they are compensated for their value as educated persons, it remains a fact that they invest their precious time and money in education with a clear purpose in their minds.

And although students cannot be called customers, or treated such, a school which wouldn’t offer the right services would perhaps not survive. Students are looking for quality education and they know what they are looking for, and therefore, the educational institutes are, in a way, forced to go that way. They need to know what one requires and expects as a student.

A well accomplished faculty is just a part of the way of teaching and a disciplined approach so as to add value to the academic experience of the students. It is also necessary to have a good capacity for communication. Even if held that student is pretty much like a customer at some level, it cannot be perfectly justified.
 
First of all, the consumer-seller relationship can never be brought down to a level where both are partnered and give rise to strategic initiatives. It is close to absurdity. But the argument is that the some students who seek to enrol in business schools are experienced themselves. They know precisely what they want from these schools. Such students are given control over their own curriculum experience.

It needs to be customized to suit each individual’s level. Certain students look for extraordinary professional growth, and would as a result of this go in for a highly challenging curriculum. Fact remains that M.B.A programs today define themselves with a very narrow scope. Some even doubt the very worth of M.B.A degrees. Too much focus apparently comes in the way of a holistic, conventional approach towards education. The trend of shared governance is probably just pushing it to the limit now.

It is believed by some that the picture began to change ever since it became commonplace for students to evaluate professors. Decision making in the campus has had students playing a significant role. Therefore, somewhere down the line, educational institutes began providing what the students really wanted. This obviously has led to pampering students, like companies that want to sell products pamper their customers.

There are flaws to this analogy, of course, but it is just how it looks in the bigger picture. The tuition fees are sky high and this obviously endangers the reputation of these business schools, and it gets difficult for them to maintain academic excellence- many fear that there will soon be a nation of underworked and pampered leaders.