``It is one matter to be aware of management principles and another to negotiate with the head of an agitating trade union,'' he says.

Atmuri was lucky. He was one of the few engineers to have applied human resource management principles after going through a structured distance education Master's in Business Administration from Deakin University Australia.

``The course opened a window to the nuances of management practices. It was my first exposure to integration of technology with corporate strategies. While studying the MBA course, ICI offered me the process engineer's position and this helped me go up the career ladder,'' he says.

``At least 80 per cent of the managers who undergo our course get higher salaries and 70 per cent added responsibilities. Its combination of theory and practical tipsmakes it one of the best distance education programmes running in the country, outside the Indian Institutes of Management,'' claims Robert S Thomason, director, associations division, Deakin Management Centre, Melbourne. Deakin University, named after Australian prime minister Alfred Deakin, delivers education and training programmes throughout Asia, Europe and North America. It has reached a significant signpost in India -- the first batch of Indian managers completed Deakin's Master of Business Administration course in technology management last week.

For A K Kakkar, manager (sales and marketing) Siemens India Ltd, the course opened a window to the latest international trends in human resources development. ``The flexibility of the course is tremendous. One even has a choice of staggering a semester if one is working on a company project or has a family commitment. My personnel director encouraged me to enroll and I am happy that I took his advice,'' he says.

Though there are other foreign universitiesoffering similar courses, Thomason insists that the Deakin MBA has been adapted to suit Indian industry requirements. ``When Deakin decided to extend their 10-year-old management programme to India in 1995, they tailored it to local needs. We assigned professors from the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Management to rewrite our training modules according to Indian management needs, taking into account the cultural and organisational differences,'' says Thomason.

Ravneet H Pawha, country manager India of the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers (APESMA), which helps Deakin with marketing and industry information, says another strength of the course is its easy application. ``It is a very applied programme. For instance, a manager can pick up succinct tips on team building, apply them in his organisation and then come back to the course and compare the real life situation with it,'' she says.

``We can provide programmes to meet each and every stafflevel--from on-site training to self-paced learning; group or individual courses; award or non-award evaluation techniques--through the use of latest technology including e-mail, computer-managed learning and online delivery,'' she adds.

To bring forth the flexibility of the course, Thomason cites the example of an Indian manager working with an MNC at the entry level. ``In the course of the programme, he picked up the nuances of industrial relations and was promoted and posted in Singapore. Since the degree is recognised by the industry in Singapore, too, he continues to benefit from the modules,'' he concludes.