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If you want to do your MBA in the UK, TASMAC London School of Business can give you the best value for money, says Debashis Bhattacharyya..

If you are looking to do your MBA abroad, just head for TASMAC London School of Business. If nothing else, you will at least feel “at home” on this London campus of the Indian business school.

That’s not the only advantage of getting into this new business school in the world’s financial capital, though. As TASMAC chairman and managing director Giri Dua puts it, there is a “bouquet of pluses” for doing an MBA here, the cost being the prime one. He says doing a postgraduate management degree at this north London school, a barely 20-minute ride on the underground railway from the business district, will cost Indian students at least £2,000 less than any other business school in the whole of the UK. And that includes a £1,000 “nationality” scholarship Indian students are automatically eligible for when they are enrolled in this management institute, the first London campus ever set up by an Indian business school.

In some ways, TASMAC London School of Business is a trend setter, a fruit of globalisation in the education sector. Having evolved from being a distant education service provider to a premier B-school in the country over the past two decades, TASMAC — which now has campuses in Pune, Mumbai, Calcutta and Bangalore — felt the “itch”, as Dua says it, to step outside the national boundary and emerge as an internationally reputed management institute. But the question that dogged him was — “where next”, he says.

Members of the TASMAC board, a private limited company, put their heads together and shortlisted London, Dubai and Singapore as the possible destination for the business school. Eventually, London was picked as it “scored high on all parameters we had set”, Dua says.

Barely a month after the “momentous” decision was made on December 22 last year, the Indian business school set up its own campus in the UK capital — the education hub of Europe — at a cost of Rs 8 crore, funded partly by the company and an Indian public sector bank. TASMAC UK Limited, which runs the business school, is the wholly owned subsidiary of TASMAC India.

Dua feels that the B-school’s UK operations will not only “add value” to its parent company back home but will help “us in a big way” in case TASMAC decides to go public in future.

With some 200 students, TASMAC London School of Business is all set to start its first session in October this year in a redbrick building in Kingsbury, a quiet London neighbourhood that faces a vast park. The 15,000 square feet institute, taken on lease for 15 years, spreads over three floors. In all, it has 11 classrooms, each seating a maximum of 20 students.

TASMAC London school head Marshall Hall says the school will provide “affordable, acceptable and appropriate” education for management students — the “three As” that he says are the guiding principle of TASMAC.

While a business school in the UK typically charges £8,000 or more in course fees, Hall says TASMAC will charge only £6,950, making its course “inexpensive locally”. Moreover, he says students from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several other countries will get £1,000 off the course fee under a “nationality” scholarship scheme the institute has devised to make the course “more affordable”.

Students can pay in installments. But those who pay the entire fee upfront will get a five per cent fee waiver, Hall says.

The B-School has already been accredited to — and recognised by — the British Accreditation Council for Independent Further and Higher Education. TASMAC claims it is the first institute outside Europe and the only institute in India to receive this “prestigious” accreditation.

Apart from the MBA, the business school will offer a bachelors degree in business administration with specialisation in finance, marketing and information management. It will also offer a part-time MBA course.

Those doing the full-time MBA — who will comprise almost 60 per cent of the students at the institute — will have the option to specialise in five areas, including finance, marketing, international business and information management.

It is not TASMAC that will award the degrees to the successful students in London. The undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the B-school will all be awarded by the University of Wales that TASMAC has tied up with. It was legally necessary as only universities can accord degrees in the UK. Dua says they believe that getting degrees from a well-recognised British university will serve as an “added” attraction to students, especially those from India.

TASMAC will provide the curriculum and the University of Wales has nothing to do with it. “It’s appropriate for multiracial population. After all, we are going to have a multiracial, diverse population,” TASMAC founder Dua says.

The TASMAC London campus should bring cheers to the B-school’s students in India. Dua says there will not only be academic collaborations between TASMAC India and TASMAC London students but also student and faculty exchanges. TASMAC students from India and the UK will engage in joint case study developments and in joint consulting assignments.

The London B-school will have 18 members on the faculty, 12 of whom will be visiting professors. “The six, full-time faculty members have all considerable work experience behind them as we assign importance to that,” says John Rooney, manager of academic studies at the school.

The institute will have some 2,000 books in its library and half of them already line the bookshelves. It will also have countless e-books and e-journals. Students will also have access to the vast e-library of the University of Wales.

Tasmac will try to provide hostel facilities for about 150 students —boys and girls on different floors —in a house not far from the institute, located close to the Wembley Stadium.

Living expenses for a student in London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, costs typically between £6,000 and £9,000 a year. To meet the expenses, students are allowed by British law to work 20 hours a week, usually at the rate of £5.65 per hour.

One big advantage of getting a British degree is that it allows a student to stay on in the UK for two years afterwards and work. While TASMAC doesn’t guarantee placement, institute officials say it is a cinch.

As Dua puts it, having a British management degree and work experience in London could only work in favour of an Indian student when he is back home.

Sources: The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)