The question or problem raised by Pandora L Patton is something we
are facing at my institute. Are our students of higher education in
Rural Management our customers?
MHO may be of relevence to this discussion:
Context:
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At the Institute of Rural Management, Anand(IRMA), India we offer a two
year postgraduate diploma in Rural Management. Our endeavour is to
attract, educate and make available trained managers for the Rural
Development sector. The founders of this institute were responding to a
percieved national need. The Director and Faculty have been struggling to
respond.
My View:
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I see the students as being in the production line - in process. The
customers are really the organisations in the Rural sector in our country.
Since students come with a variety of expectations, background etc., while
at the institute, they are our customers and raw material,and later as
Alumni remain our allies to improve our process methods(teaching-
learning-methods). As customers, the learning modules, methods, campus
life etc are key elements that provide for student satisfaction. As raw
material, they are being prepared into that value added product that our
target customers require.
Our problem:
-----------
Right now we are going through much of soul searching. Something appears
to have gone wrong. Assuming the market (customer) cannot be wrong, our
process at the institute is inappropriate or our raw material needs
careful selection. I am in a committee to look into our current problem.
Our students seem to be much more in demand by the corporate sector than
the sector we are targetting. At least our primary customers -
organisations such as producer cooperatives seem to be less enthusiastic
about our products. Naturally, the Board is unhappy with us, the faculty.
The students want to go were they seem to be in demand.(The problem is not
as simple as this paragraph. It only gives an essence of the problem).
For more information about IRMA see http://irma.irm.ernet.in
Any thoughts on the above are welcome. Maybe Pandora L Patton could also
share the paper with me? Thanks
Regards
Thomas P Benjamin
PB 60
Institute of Rural Management
Anand 388 001 INDIA
benjamin@fac.irm.ernet.in
--"Thomas Benjamin" <BENJAMIN@fac.irm.ernet.in>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>