Gabriel Vaz
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Mar 1: Step inside thesprawling campus equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and green lung space in the heart of India’s knowledge capital of Bengaluru, within walking distance from the city’s busiest Mahatma Gandhi Road – so much part of the hustle and bustle of Karnataka’s capital and yet totally unaffected like an oasis of learning – and you are in the portals of St Joseph’s Institute of Management (SJIM), which has made a name for itself among the country’s best of management educational institutes.

Though it had a modest beginning in 1968 conducting one-year evening management courses to help working executives, it transformed itself into SJIM (formerly known as SJCBA) in 1996 after securing All Indian Council of Technical Education (AICTE) approval for starting its two-year full time post-graduate diploma in management (PGDM).

The intake was doubled to 120 students in 2007, in which year SJIM also secured AICTE approval for offering Executive PGDM and post-graduate certificate in management (PGCM) to cater to the needs of persons with rich industry experience and keen to supplement as well as widen their scope for knowledge.

Hugely Popular PGDM, E-PGDM Courses

The PGDM and E-PGDM courses of SJIM have already become immensely popular among aspiring management trainees, with almost all the successful candidates comfortably placed with attractive and lucrative job offers with this year’s pay packets ranging from Rs 4.5 lac to Rs 14 lac per annum, says the young and dynamic Fr Manoj D’Souza, who has just taken over as the Director.

SJIM, part of the tradition, expertise and ethos of the educational institutions run by the Jesuit priests for 150 years in Bengaluru, compares favourably with the best of B-Schools run by Jesuits in India such as the Xavier School of Management (XLRI), Jamshedpur, Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB), Bhubaneswar, Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), Chenna, and Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS), Ranchi, and had been adjudged as ‘’A ++" by the leading business magazine, Business India, in 2016.

''Recognition and laurels within a short span of a decade is a remarkable achievement indeed," said Fr Manoj D’Souza, adding: ''We feel proud of our student profile with diverse educational background and corporate exposure. We take pride in placing our students, young men and women, in premier companies year after year."

Unique features of SJIM

SJIM also offers separate hostel facilities for men and women students and has its own canteen facility round the year

Some of the unique features of SJIM, which has emerged as the most sought after institute offering top-notch management education with highly qualified teaching faculty, are: Excellent placement record in the premier companies (95 % in 2016), faculty with vast corporate experience and PhDs besides being trained at IIM/IISc/IIT/BITS/US/UK, course content and teaching-learning methods on par with IIMs, dual specialisation from Finance/Human Resource Management/Marketing/Operations, small classroom size to maximise faculty-student interaction and on-campus facilities for sports gym in addition to student-driven activities to develop managerial and organisational skills.

SJIM, a member of the International Association of Jesuit Business Schools (IAJBS), Milwaukee, USA, boasts of a well-equipped library with over 20,000 titles as well as digital collections besides subscription to journals and periodicals of national and international repute. The library open for 12 hours from 8 am to 8 pm also subscribes to E-books, EBSCO, Emerald, PROWESS, CRISIL Research, Capitaline and J-Gate, which are well-known data-bases and resources to support the research work of students and faculty.

Scholarships, Fee Concessions

Another most popular and widely used facility at SJIM is the well-equipped computer lab with networking as well as 24x7 broadband internet facility plus WiFi connectivity that enables students to access the college servers from anywhere on campus, explained Fr Manoj D’Souza.

Despite providing top-notch management education and hugely popular PGDM and PGCM courses, the fees at SJIM are comparatively very modest at Rs 3.4 lac per annum against upwards of Rs 7.5 lac per annum in other management institutions, which offer the same course content and learning cum teaching methods.

In keeping with the tradition and practice of all educational institutions run by Jesuit Fathers, SJIM offers a wide range of general merit scholarships, merit cum means scholarships to needy and deserving students. ''The total value of the scholarships in 2016-17 amounted to Rs 27 lac," Fr Manoj D’Souza added.