Business schools likely to be given more autonomy

NEW DELHI : India’s top private business schools such as XLRI, Jamshedpur, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, and MDI, Gurgaon are likely to get a bigger say in admissions, fees and curriculum with the government planning to grant more freedom to them to do so in a move that is both a recognition of their performance and an enabler to help them do even better.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the regulatory body for technical education in the country, is likely to meet later this month to take a call on the exact nature of the autonomy the institutions, most of which offer a post graduate diploma in management (PGDM), should be given.

There are about 400 such business schools in the country, and a handful of them are comparable to the older Indian Institutes of Management or IIMS.

AICTE officials said the busi- ness schools will be graded A, B and C after assessing them on a set of criteria, including leadership, teaching, learning, graduation outcomes, research, executive education, consulting and learning programmes, accreditation, and internationalisation and outreach programmes.

The degree of autonomy they get will depend on their grades.

“A PGDM institute that gets A gradingmightbegiventheutmost autonomy. As it is, admissions to a number of institutes are through CAT (the common admission test conducted by the IIMS). If an institute gets A grade, it might be allowed to hold its own examination for all seats or for certain percentage of seats. Those graded B may get autonomy in admission to a fewer number of seats,” said an AICTE official on condition of anonymity.

The degree of autonomy will be decided at the AICTE meeting this month. The grading will be done after that and AICTE expects to roll out its grades from the next academic session.