The Madan Mohanka Centre of Excellence in Case Method of Learning (MMCoECML) at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) conducted a two-day residential Open Enrolment Programme (OEP) on Case Pedagogy from May 24-25, 2026, at the IIMA campus.
As a pioneering initiative to shape and strengthen India’s future educators in the case pedagogy, the programme, titled ‘An Introduction to Case Pedagogy for Doctoral Students’, was fully sponsored by IIMA and MMCoECML for all 73 doctoral students who made up the programme’s maiden batch. This was achieved through the generosity of Mr. Madan Mohanka, an IIMA alumnus of the PGP 1967 batch and Chairman, Tega Industries Limited, who has made significant contributions to management education and industry, and set up the Madan Mohanka Centre of Excellence in Case Method of Learning at IIMA.
MMCoECML aims to train more and more faculty members in the country to excel as case method instructors and support the development of cases through funding, research assistance, reviewing, and editing. On the same lines, this sponsored programme aimed to encourage more doctoral students from the management and allied disciplines to learn and benefit from IIMA’s unique case-based pedagogy.
The workshop was conducted by Professor Saral Mukherjee, Chairperson, MMCoECML, and Professor Subhadip Roy, faculty member at IIMA, and introduced attendees to the participant-centred case pedagogy through live case demonstrations, case writing, case-based classroom discussion, and structure, research, and publishing in case writing.
Speaking of the real-world applications of the case pedagogy, Professor Bharat Bhasker, Director, IIMA, said, “Today in India, we have 43 million students in our education system. However, it is a challenge to prepare employable and industry-ready graduates who can immediately apply practical knowledge at their workplace. In management, a solution that worked for a particular scenario may not work for the other. This is where the case methodology comes in, as it doesn’t just teach students theories and frameworks, but also puts them through practical scenarios, from strategic boardroom discussions to identifying the problem at the operations level. This not only enhances one’s critical thinking, but also helps them prepare for the workplace, wherein new and dynamic challenges will occur daily and demand solutions.”
He also thanked Mr. Mohanka for his generosity in sponsoring the programme and bolstering a new generation of doctoral students and future educators, who would go on to be architects of the Indian education system.
Mr. Mohanka congratulated the doctoral students for their selection and spoke of the workshop’s relevance in the modern world, stating, “The cornerstone of this vision was simple but profoundly ambitious: teaching the teachers, strengthening their skills, and developing the case pedagogy. All of you here are the architects of intellectual movement in the country, and your primary mission will be teaching the next generation not what to think, but how to think. Management is not a science, rather, it is a messy human practice. It takes a skilled case writer to capture the raw tensions of the real world, corporate dilemmas, and translate it into a structured form. Here, you will be writing original, high-quality cases that are rooted in context and will bring real-world dilemmas to life for your students.”
Professor Saral Mukherjee spoke of uniqueness of the case pedagogy to IIMA, saying, “The case method of learning has been nurtured in IIMA through decades of refinement. At its core, this pedagogy is practice-oriented, participant-centred and a gift from one generation to the next. The Madan Mohanka Centre of Excellence in Case Method of Learning has been set up in August 2025 to strengthen the case pedagogy. We are thus excited to organise the inaugural edition of an open-enrolment program for doctoral students. The two-day programme was offered free of cost to 73 doctoral students across IIMs, IITs, Central and State Universities.”
Overall, the programme instilled the importance of the practical application of theories and frameworks within real-world scenarios, which would transform the learning experience for students within management and allied disciplines.
