“While we have no special view on the Government’s initiative to give degree granting rights to the IIMs, it should not in any way adversely affect the operation of the PGDM schools, which have served the nation all these years,” said J. Philip, President XIME & Former Director IIMB. Philip was speaking at the first Indian B-Schools Summit organised by Indian Association of Autonomous Business Schools (IAABS) to discuss possible promulgation of the IIM-MBA Bill and other important management education centric issues.
“The PGDM schools have given to Indian management education, quality, respectability and innovativeness. The employability of PGDM graduates would at least be twice as much as that of MBA graduates from the university system. This distinctive contribution of the PGDM schools must be recognised,” added Philip.
Chaired by E Abraham SJ, Director of XLRI Jamshedpur and President of IAABS, The 2-day conference was held at XIME Campus, Bangalore on 9th & 10th October in collaboration with Karnataka Association of Autonomous Business Schools (KAABS). The theme of the seminar was “Heralding a new era in management education in India”.
“Another important matter that concerns autonomous PGDM schools is the continued reluctance of AIU in granting PhD equivalence to Fellow Programme offered by reputed autonomous institutes approved by AICTE,” added Abrahim of XLRI. “Currently AIU grants equivalence only to IIMs. Even new IIMs have been granted equivalence. Many new private universities are also allowed to grant PhD degrees”.
The conference brought together directors of leading autonomous, private PGDM Schools from accross the country, former IIM directors and leading management educationists to discuss and review the present situation and make a request to the Government to protect the interests of private, autonomous PGDM Schools and ensure a level-playing field purely based on merit.
EPSI request
The central government had recently rejected the request from Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI), a group representing 300 Indian business schools to let them award MBA degrees. Currently, state-run IIMs as well as privately owned B-schools such as XLRI- Jamshedpur, and MDI Gurgaon among others grant postgraduate diplomas in management (PGDM), not degrees. If the IIM-MBA bill allows IIMs to grant degrees, it will put the premier private B-Schools at a distinct disadvantage.
IAABS had written to M. K. Kaw, Chairman of AICTE review committee highlighting the request for increased autonomy to PGDM B-schools, informed Abrahim. “On February 22nd this year we had attended the AICTE review Committee meeting in New Delhi where we had presented our submissions, few of our above suggestions have been also recommended by the KAW Committee when they submitted their report a few months ago to the Ministry of HRD,” said Abrahim.
IAABS - Indian Association of Autonomous Business Schools was formed to establish a network of PGDM-Autonomous Management Institutions to contribute to the development of management education in all aspects. The association opines that the biased MBA Bill would disrupt the equilibrium of management education system in India since it does not provide a level playing ground for private autonomous management institutes and with this bill government has gone against its own decades long policy of encouraging PGDM institutes evolve as beacons of excellence.