Thirty seven (37) faculty members including international participants from neighboring countries like Nepal and Maldives participated in this 30th FDP.
The 16-week long programme not only covers basic disciplines like economics and statistics and core management areas like marketing, finance, human resource management, operations management and strategy, but also focuses on academic writing, case writing, qualitative and quantitative research methods and innovative pedagogical techniques.
Says IIM-A, "The FDP was launched by IIMA in 1979 and is a multi-tier programme meant for management faculty from India and abroad. It is the most reputed faculty development programme in India and its neighboring countries. The FDP is specially designed to meet the management education requirements of teachers, researchers, and trainers in HRD, training colleges and industrial organizations."
A unique component of the FDP is to provide information and guidelines to develop expertise in conducting management development program-mes, doing consultancies, and the ways to access funding agencies for doing the funded projects. This year, the programme included rigorous exercises and live projects in various courses, and industrial visits to Reliance Refinery and Amul Dairy.
According the 30th FDP Chairperson Prof. Manjari Singh, "IIM Ahmedabad tries to provide the best learning environment to the participants. The added advantage for this offering was the scope to learn through diversity in the participant backgrounds. They were from different fields of management like finance, marketing, HR, etc. and came with a rich array of experience. The participants from all over the country and also neighbouring countries worked together in groups, staying in the same dormitory building. Their presentations and reports were of high standards and reflected their learning through diversity and the honed analytical skills of academicians."
Happy with the outcome of the course, a participant from Mumbai remarked "For me, it was amazing experience, a great learning experience, which gave me insights in management areas." A participant from Tamil Nadu added, "The entire contents of the FDP is found useful and especially the critique writing, data analysis, research methodology, operations management, communication for management teachers, qualitative research methods, etc. are really useful."
An international participant from Nepal remarked, "It was a prestigious opportunity for me to represent my institute and gain the amount of knowledge and everlasting experience at an esteemed institute like IIM Ahmedabad. Apart from learning, the association with distinguished professors of IIMA and with many management teachers from different parts of India and abroad has been a great earning for me in these three and half months."
