AICTE Plays Bigg Boss To B-Schools!

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has again smashed its iron fist on business schools and this time, it has drawn curtains for part-time management courses as well as evening MBA courses. It means that the country's technical education regulator will not permit any new part-time MBA programmes anymore nor will it allow fresh admissions to the existing programmes from the next academic year. B-schools, who still want to offer such part-time management programmes, will have to apply to AICTE every year for the approval of its programmes.

AICTE Says...

Many B-schools allegedly try to be smart and run other programmes on the pretext of offering a part-time MBA programme. To clamp such institutions, it had become necessary to keep a much closer tab on part-time management programmes approved by the Big Boss AICTE.

Who Will Get Affected?

Right now, there are about 2,500 AICTE-approved management schools across India. The decision to clamp down part-time MBA and evening MBA programmes are expected to affect at least 400 of these colleges and as many as 20,000 students. Naturally, management institutions have turned red-faced and are extremely agitated over the new dictatorial regulation.

Suresh Ghai, Director of K J Somaiya Institute of Management and Research said, "Experienced people learn management much better than freshers. We have around 240 students for master courses in management, finance, human resource and information management. We have already requested the vice-chancellor of the University of Mumbai to take up the matter with AICTE." A group of management institutes are also planning to file a joint public interest suit against the regulation in the Bombay High Court.

Intellectuals Think...

• Part-time MBA programmes are mainly offered for the benefit of working and experienced professionals. There are management institutes that admit fresh graduates too in a bid to make money. AICTE should target such management institutes only. Good management institutes and genuine students should be spared the shocks.

• Part-time MBA programmes and evening MBA programmes are generally less expensive than the conventional full-time regular MBA programmes. B-schools in Mumbai that charge Rs 4 to 5 lakh for a two-year full-time regular MBA programme, offers it for only about Rs 1.2 lakh in the part-time mode. Shutting these programmes will mean putting this affordable mode of higher education to an end.

• Part-time MBA programmes help employees to acquire knowledge and develop themselves for new responsibilities in new supervisory roles. Internationally, such courses are available after office hours. In the times when India should be preparing for a better trained workforce, such a move can actually pull us back.

Earlier...

AICTE had come out with strict regulations about fees, course curriculum, and admission procedures of B-schools which had led to a outrage in management institutes. Litigations against AICTE guidelines were filed in the high courts of Delhi, Mumbai, and Orissa. Bombay High Court had offered an interim relief to 52 B-schools and allowed them to continue with their admission processes for the current academic year.

What We Think...

While AICTE is no doubt working hard to protect the interests of prospective students, it seems to have come out with guidelines that might actually hurt management education instead of making it better. Let's review some of the most controversial recommendations one by one:

•    Admission for all management courses cannot start before March 31

• Agreed! The Common Admission Test (CAT), the most popular MBA entrance exam for serious management aspirants in India, is conducted in October. Most of the good institutes start their admission process in January. However, there are other institutes that keep waiting for other entrance tests. Thus, students apply to many institutions at a time. If they get selected in their preferred institution later, they take transfers. So, many of the good institutes are left with vacant seats every year. Defining dates of admission will help institutes to determine how many seats are left vacant by a certain time and other shortlisted candidates can be admitted to fill them up.

•    B-School fees and expenses should be fixed by state government-led committee

• Partly Agreed! While B-schools may not be happy over the limitations being placed on their incomes, it is true that soaring fees for management education programmes is putting bright students who are not affluent at a disadvantage. It will also be good if unfair practices like capitation fees are be done away with. However, history has proved that state governments tend to politicize everything and it would have been better of the committee that would fix the fees would have been centralized. It could have also included representatives from business schools, education professionals, and industry to ensure that cost factors also get a fair representation without compromising the quality of education.

•    Only CAT, MAT and state government organized management entrance tests should be considered for admissions

• Irksome and Unnecessary! Apart from IIMs, only about 150 private management institutions actually use CAT scores. Others prefer to use other entrance tests including the likes of XAT, ATMA, and MICAT. Such unnecessary regulations seem more to hinder the progress of B-schools rather than helping them in focusing on the quality. Moreover, CAT is now a computer-based examination. Students applying for management institutions in rural or far-flung areas may not even be aware of several of its aspects. Besides, these exams often do not cater to the needs of specialized institutes like rural management and communication management institutes. AICTE could have stepped back on this one.

•    A model curriculum should be introduced for all PGDM programmes, which will be designed by education experts

• Difficult to Implement! A model curriculum will hurt the education systems of specialized management institutes. Plus, many of the B-schools that had been approved earlier by AICTE may not have the infrastructure and teaching facilities needed for the model curriculum. Taking away their approved status will hurt the management students who have graduated from there or are enrolled there. The guideline also hurts the autonomy of the self-financing PGDM institutes.

•    Duration of a PGDM or an MBA programme should not be less than 24 months

• Unfair! In India and abroad, many executive MBA programmes are offered for a year or less. Experienced professionals do not need to go through the grind for as long as fresh graduates to pick up management skills. Forcing professionals to go through two years of study will mean that both institutes and industry will find it difficult to recruit right kind of candidates.

•    Part-time MBA programmes and Evening PGDM programmes should be shut down

• Duh! Where will working professionals like us go? As if those who are already employed have no right to enhance their knowledge and require new skills. AICTE could have tried to regulate the quality of such management programmes but scrapping them off will mean stagnant growth for us.

What do you think about AICTE and its guidelines? Do share your views with us and keep revisiting this page for some interesting discussions on the topic.

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Source: Ruchi Shrimali (Shiksha Team)

Date: 8th March, 2011

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