Santiago Íñiguez, Dean of IE Business School, welcomed the Indian Leaders to the school’s facilities. He opened his address by emphasising the centre’s commitment to internationalisation through its ‘blended learning programmes’. Those programmes are a pioneering initiative which IE Business School started in 2001 and which combines online and face-to-face education with maximum engagement between students and faculty, which results in a healthy balance between teamwork, face-to-face lessons and video conferences. This innovative method has contributed towards the centre’s recognition worldwide for years and positioned it as Europe’s best business school in 2012, according to the Financial Times. The philosophy behind the blended learning method, and behind all the training on offer at IE Business School lies, according to Santiago Íñiguez, in the fact that “competition is everywhere nowadays, and being global means we are present in more markets.”
After the Dean’s address, Joël McConnell, Director of International Development for Asia Pacific, delved into IE’s culture: “Our core values are diversity, innovation and entrepreneurship,” he emphasised, values which have led the school to sign over 50 exchange agreements all over the world. He also emphasised the importance they afford their international recruitment centres, “over 50 worldwide” among which the one in India is one of the top ones per number of registered students.
Kriti Jain, a Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources at IE, also took part in the discussion with the Indian Leaders to introduce the research project ‘Technology-accelerated methods in higher education in India.’ The study analyses how to train people in India to integrate them into the workforce, taking 50% of population aged under 25 as reference. “Is India ready?” she asked. The study includes an analysis of projects which seek to implement technology to face this challenge. According to Jain, “the results weren’t as positive as expected, but they were encouraging in terms of reception and possibilities.”
The Indian Leaders exchanged opinions with the representatives of IE Business School and they all agreed on the need to overcome barriers to mutual exchange. They also had the chance to meet a group of students from India, ask them about their reasons for studying in Spain and discuss potential opportunities for the two countries in the area of education. IE Business School has around 500 lecturers who teach students from over 90 countries.
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III Edition Activity summary
