A Study of Existing Management Education Models across South Asian Region and Its Development by Focussing On Partnerships

Abstract

The South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC), consisting of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Srilanka, was established in 1985 with the objective of raising the standards of living in the region through greater economic co-operation among member countries. The growing recognition of social indicators and their direct relationship with country's human development lead greater emphasis on nations to seek not only economic but social cooperation. The areas of cooperation should also cover human development that current discourse on the subject emphases. In today's scenario a nation's/bloc's visibility on international discourse is evaluated on the basis of whether a country or a bloc (economic or non economic) has been able to deliver on internationally accepted goals and objectives. In this direction the MDG (millennium development goals) placed human well-being and universal education at the centre of global development objectives-an approach advocated by development perspective emerging from human development theorists and supporters. Today's society is primarily a knowledge based society and a nations visibility on international arena is depicted by how well a country perform in knowledge related variables. The discourse on development in a knowledge-based society has changed enormously. In this discourse the shift of focus from capital to human resource development has prime importance. In the context of knowledge based economy, education is one of the critical variable to be evaluated and researched upon by knowledge workers i.e academicians, scholars, industry and international bodies. The South Asian region, being rich in human resource, has tremendous opportunities in a knowledge-based society to support its own development and turn the axis of global development in its favour. It requires certain strategies of development within respective countries and active co-operation among the SAARC, notwithstanding the initiatives taken so far, as well as among countries of Asia and Pacific continent. Strong institutional networking and sharing with countries and institutions of the world in a way that supports the SAARC to reap its comparative advantage is the strategy that policy makers in this region must take into consideration. The objective of the paper is to elucidate the changing global context, review the progress through important indicators of human development primarily education and to pinpoint the differences in educational institutions across South Asian Region, strategies of development, including the aspects of co-operation in human development. The objective of the paper is to work on the backdrop of the literature that reveals the need for institutional networking, resource mobilization, partnerships and developing tailored pedagogy for educational institutes to meet current and future market needs. Keywords: Human development, institutional networking, knowledge, education, resource mobilization.