In order to get assurance from MHRD to protect their autonomy and waiver from the fee capping, Directors and deans of PGDM B-schools under EPSI umbrella met Smt Smriti Irani Honourable Minister of HRD, Government of India on April 26, 2016. EPSI functionaries and directors of PGDM B-schools solicited Minister’s intervention for protecting the autonomy of 300+ PGDM institutions to ensure healthy growth of Indian management Education.
During the meeting and vide its Memorandum EPSI/PGDM/ES/2016 dated April 26, 2016, Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI) brought forth the issue of PGDM institutions to the attention of Minister of Human Resource Development as the earlier decisions caused turmoil in the education system and have resulted in demoralizing the PGDM B-schools of the country. The meeting focused on 2 major issues seeking withdrawal of AICTE notification dated December 28, 2010 and exclusion of PGDM B-schools from fee capping as recommended by Justice B N Shrikrishna Committee
The Memorandum was signed by Directors of the highly ranked PGDM B-schools apart from senior functionaries of ABBS and EPSI. Prominent among the signatories are Dr G. Viswanathan, President EPSI, Chancellor VIT University Vellore; Padma Shri Dr Pritam Singh, Advisor EPSI, former Director, IIM Lucknow & former DG, IMI & MDI; Fr (Dr.) Abraham SJ, President IAABS, Director XLRI, Jamshedpur; Padma Shri Dr Bakul Dholakia Vice President, IAABS Director General IMI New Delhi & former Director IIM Ahmedabad; Dr C P Shrimali, Director MDI Gurgaon; Dr R C Natarajan Director TAPMI Manipal; Dr Atish Chattopadhyay Director IMT Ghaziabad; Sharad Jaipuria Chairman, Jaipuria Group of institutions; Dr Prashant Bhalla Treasurer EPSI & President MREI, Faridabad; Dr Arya Kumar, Director LBSIM, New Delhi; Dr N. M. Kondap Director, DSIMS Mumbai and Dr. H. Chaturvedi, Alt President EPSI and Director BIMTECH, Greater Noida.
PGDM B-schools: Second to none
Emphasizing the importance and excellence of education offered in PGDM B-schools, EPSI brought the attention of MHRD to the fact that these institutions were created on the lines of IIMs by MHRD, GoI as independent centres of excellence. In last 50 years, the PGDM B-schools have met their promise by providing quality education to lakhs of students. This fact can also be validated by viewing the ranking published by reputed agencies like Business Today, CNBC TV18, Outlook, MBAUniverse.com, NHRDN which have 75-80 B-schools among top 100 ranked institutes. Number of PGDM B-schools like XLRI, SP Jain, MDI, IMI, IMT among others are ranked ahead of some of IIMs.
MHRD to intervene in withdrawal of controversial AICTE Notification of 2010
EPSI brought to the notice of MHRD that PGDM B-schools have always abided by the policies formed by AICTE since 1987. However, the AICTE notification of December 2010 proposed to withdraw the autonomy of PGDM institutions in regard to admission, curriculum framing, evaluation, fee fixing and governance adversely affecting the vibrancy of PGDM programme.
In order to protect their autonomy, the PGDM B-schools approached Honourable Supreme Court of India who in turn issued a status quo order on March 7, 2011 and granted interim stay against the notification in its six interim orders issued on 17.3.2011; 26.7.2011; 10.7.2012; 29.8.2013, 15.10.2014 and 4.12.2015 restoring the status quo and staying AICTE Notification of 2010.
The directors, EPSI and IAABS functionaries requested Smt Smriti Irani Minister of HRD to intervene and press upon AICTE to withdraw its December 2010 notification with immediate effect to allow level playing field to the PGDM B-schools.
Exclusion of PGDM B-schools from fee capping
The PGDM B-schools also brought to the notice of MHRD that the recent report of Justice B. N. Shrikrishna Committee about the fee capping for MBA and other programmes has recommended Rs.1.5 lakh to Rs.1.7 lakh per annum fee for MBA. In this connection a delegation of directors of PGDM B-schools met Dr Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman AICTE and conveyed to him that these recommendations arbitrary, illogical and harmful for the future growth of management education in India.
The directors of PGDM B-schools, senior functionaries of IAABS and EPSI requested the Honourable Minister of HRD to direct AICTE to refrain from including the PGDM institutions in the ambit of Justice Shrikrishna Committee report as the petition filed by PGDM institutions through EPSI, AIMS, IAABS and Jaipuria Group is still pending with the Honourable Supreme Court of India.
The delegation of directors also requested MHRD to form a task force with participation of EPSI and leading management academicians to resolve these issues. Moving forward in the direction request was also made before MHRD to revive AIBMS, a national body and a part of AICTE to deal with all issues related to management education but lying dormant now.
It turned out to be a fruitful meeting with assurance from the Minister of HRD to look into all the problems and sorting them out at the earliest.
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