B-Schools Demand Level Ground For Equilibrium of Management Education

Many well-known autonomous business schools have demanded a level playing ground to maintain the equilibrium of management education.

According to a news release issued by XLRI on Monday, at the first Indian business schools summit organized by Indian Association of Autonomous Business School (IAABS) recently at Bangalore, Fr Abraham from the XLRI said, "Of late, considerable concern has arisen among private, autonomous PGDM schools in regard to the possible promulgation of the IIM Blll - 2015.

"In this context, many private PGDM schools have been examining the possible ramifications if IIMs are allowed to grant MBA degrees. Based on a series of interactions amongst many of the reputed private institutions from the PGDM system, we felt the need to organize the Conference of autonomous B-schools (particularly PGDM) to discuss some important related issues", Abraham was quoted in the release.

It has been seen very recently, that the central government rejected the request from Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI), a group representing 300 Indian business schools, to let them award MBA degrees, he observed.

Currently, state-run IIMs as well as privately owned B-schools such as XLRI (Jamshedpur), BIMTECH (Greater Noida) 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-bchools at a distinct disadvantage, Abraham said.

The XLRI release claimed that Prof J Philip, president XIME & former director IIM-Bangalore stated, "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 so eminently and eloquently all these years."

Inputs from PTI