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Apprehensive that the Centre's move to let IIMs award degrees would jeopardise their prospects, business schools offering a post-graduate diploma in management (PGDM) want the government to ensure a level playing field.
Management educators argue that once Parliament passes the IIM Bill 2017, it will lead to recruiters and foreign partners questioning the validity of a PGDM.
Granting complete autonomy to the 20 IIMs, the Bill – to be introduced in the Lok Sabha in the second half of the Budget Session that resumes on March 9 – proposes to empower the premier management institutes to award degrees instead of the PGDMs they have been offering thus far.
Under the aegis of the Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI), directors of over 50 PGDM institutes brainstormed over the weekend on the fallout of the IIM Bill and the ways to counter its adverse effects.
The EPSI is an umbrella body of over 500 private institutions, including prestigious ones likes XLRI, MDI, IMT and BIMTECH.
He said that PGDM institutions offer 75,000 management graduates every year to the industry – 10 times more than the 20 IIMs.
Chaturvedi said the EPSI will approach Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar and also the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) with their proposal of setting up an NMU.
He said the EPSI will approach the HRD minister later this month with details of the proposed NMU, which will be modelled on the Singapore Management University.
Fore School of Management Director Jitendra K Das also questioned the government's intent behind the IIM Bill.
“Barring 4-5, most of the IIMs are struggling and have been set up without conforming to AICTE norms,” Das said.
“In such a scenario, the IIM Bill seems to be more of a political agenda. It’s amply clear that the government is not concerned about the quality of education but more about scoring political brownie points by showing they have opened new IIMs or given them more autonomy,” he added.
Speaking in similar vein, Indian Institute of Finance Chairman JD Agarwal said the bill was an attempt to kill private B-schools. “It is the private institutes that have ensured supply of quality management graduates over the years,” he said. “It is the private sector which has immensely contributed towards higher education in the country.”
EPSI President and VIT University Chancellor G Viswanathan said the government must do away with procedural bottlenecks.
“In India, setting up educational institutions means affiliation, approval, NOC (no objection certificate), permission, recognition – as opposed to most global institutes where only accreditation matters,” he said.
While appreciating the idea of an NMU, Viswanathan said that the top B-schools should approach the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the HRD Ministry seeking deemed university status.
"Based on their performance, the UGC should grant deemed university status to the B-schools so that they can award degrees. Coming up with a new university is time-consuming – you need go through Parliament for that. But a deemed university status would solve the problem," he added.
(Anurag Dey can be contacted at anurag.d@ians.in)
(The article has been published in an arrangement with IANS)
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