A non -hostile project

The information hype raised around the innovation center in Skolkovo distracted public attention from another no less ambitious project-the same business school. Meanwhile, the Skolkovo School of Management is a kind of mirror of Russian innovations.

She thought as a private-state partnership. The purpose of the project is to create an international business school of a new formation, one of the leaders in the world market. Ruben Vardanyan , the owner of the Troika Dialogue investment company, became its official initiator and the main paladin. Vardanyan seemed an excellent candidate for this role: he knew very well what business needed, and showed considerable zeal in the implementation of the project.

The school became known to the broad masses thanks to the activities of the deputy Alexei Navalny , who expressed indignation with the fact that the school at the height of the crisis received a loan of $ 245 million.

But, firstly, Russia needs such a project as air. There is no secret that the country is poorly the situation with corporate governance, and existing educational institutions cannot solve it.

Secondly, the decision has already been made once, and to turn the project would be at least ugly. After all, it was initially clear to everyone that building such a school was a troublesome and costly matter.

Business education is largely excellent from traditional economic education. Businessmen need a certain practical platform on which some of them could transfer experience. The business school is based on a hypothesis that doing business can be taught as a craft. It is consonant with the medieval idea that wisdom is already open, and you just need to learn how to comprehend it (for which the universities arose).

In other words, a business school is a kind of institution in which people give a practical education. And although there are professors who are engaged in research, the ultimate goal is to develop the managerial abilities of managers, to teach them the techniques of effective business management.

Accordingly, the target audience of all these schools are senior managers who want to improve their effectiveness, turning to the experience of colleagues. That is, it is assumed that in business schools there should be many practitioners and that professors of business schools also need to have a business start-up. To create a school in Russia whose programs would be interesting and Western businessmen is a very difficult matter. But not hopeless at all.

Although initially a business school is a Western idea, similar educational institutions began to appear in developing countries. And some of them have become authoritative on a global scale. The top positions in the ratings were occupied by Shanghai CEIBS and Indian ISB. There is an opinion that the Skolkovo project gathered most of all from the Indian model, although this is not officially recognized.

Only 7 years have passed since the first set in ISB before getting into the TOP 20 rating. Whether Skolkovo will turn out to reach the peaks in such a short time - it is unclear. The school publishes annual reports on its activities, but it is not clear what they need to be compared with. Foreign professors work in Skolkovo, but it cannot be said that these are great business guru. The market so far has quite certain doubts about Skolkovo's ability to become a world leader in the field of business education. It is believed that if Skolkovo becomes a global competitor of the leading world business schools, then very soon.

It is useless to compare it with Russian schools. It differs from them primarily a high price. Skolkovo is initially focused on a different segment of consumers than domestic business schools. At least it should not have people who came to study just for the sake of a diploma. Which in itself is very good.