Selections Interview with with Parminder Bahra, Senior Adviser on Education Projects, Financial Times

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

<-- Previous page

Selections: How do you decide which schools to focus on in your survey?
Bahra: The minimum requirements are that the school is accredited and the program has been running for at least three years. We put together a list of schools that we consider to be the top schools. Again, they were put forward to the deans and senior faculty at the business schools. We asked around to see which countries were seen as the most important countries for business schools, and we put together a list from there. Now, it is getting bigger and more programs are being accredited. We are always looking at new schools. Initially, it was just a case of asking the business school community which schools they thought were the top schools.

Selections: So, if a new school becomes accredited this year, you would then look at this school and decide whether to include it?
Bahra: Yes.

Selections: And you would get input from deans and senior faculty on whether that would be a good school to include?
Bahra: That is right.

Selections: To whom do you consider yourself accountable in the work of producing rankings?
Bahra: I suppose ultimately it should be the business schools, in the sense that it is only with their cooperation that we can actually put this table together. If this business schools felt that this wasn’t worthy of publication, then they could always withdraw their resources and services. So as long as we can keep the business schools’ confidence on board, then I think we are okay. We can carry on running this and they will cooperate with us. They could always choose to withdraw their services and the information they provide.

Selections: How are the results of the rankings reported?
Bahra: In the newspaper and on the Web.

Selections: Do you also produce a book with the rankings information?
Bahra: Not at the moment. It may be something that we put together in the future. But it’s not something that we are doing at the moment.

Selections: Do you have information on how the rankings impact newsstand sales for the Financial Times?
Bahra: I don’t know about paper sales. But I do know that when we put the information out on the Web, it makes a huge impact in terms of the amount of traffic that we generate. I’m sure it has an impact on the paper sales. We probably get as many requests for information on back issues as we have people coming on the day the rankings are published and buying the paper. It’s definitely something that has a degree of inertia. We will still get requests for information in more detail.

Selections: How do you feel about the proliferation of rankings? Do you consider the other rankings to be competition?
Bahra: It’s competition in the sense that they will always make us think about our criteria and whether they are the best criteria that we can put together. And whether we are capturing the data in the most accurate fashion. There are always new ways of capturing information. And there are always new sets of data coming out. It’s competition in that sense. Ultimately, so long as the methodologies are secure and the information that is being put out is well researched, we have no objections and ultimately welcome the other surveys. Just because they provide more details for everybody. The other rankings keep us on our toes. Occasionally, we’ll see criteria that we haven’t seen before, and I will have to go off and start thinking about whether it is something we would want to incorporate.

Selections: What do you think the future holds for business school rankings in general and the Financial Times rankings in particular?
Bahra: Because of the proliferation of rankings and proliferation of the information that is required, I think I do see a time when there will be a formalized set of information provided by the schools. I think that because of the work required by the business schools, if there are too many people requesting information, it may be that they will say, “Here, we’ll provide you with this series of data, and do with it what you can.” It’s close to what pretty much everyone asks for. But how far away from that they are, I’m not sure. They seem to be able to accommodate our requests. I know we ask for more and more information every year, because we are trying to find new things to talk about. From my perspective, it would almost make sense to have a central organization to collect and coordinate the information. How that would happen, I don’t know. I don’t know who would be willing to stick their neck out and say, “Okay, we’ll look after the coordination.”

<-- Previous page

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5