Indian Institute of Management Calcutta plans to be an international centre of excellence in all aspects of management education in near future after becoming the only B-school in India to have been accredited by all the 3 reputed accreditations of AACSB, AMBA and latest EQUIS.
One of the top 3 IIMs and the dream B-school of CAT 2016 aspirants, IIM Calcutta will now offer yet higher vistas of knowledge and rigor in the forthcoming sessions to spread its wings making global footprints. The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) was established as the first National Institute for Post-Graduate studies and Research in Management by the Government of India in November 1961.
Over the years, IIMC has grown into a matured institution with global reputation, imparting high quality management education. It has been playing a pioneering role in professionalizing Indian management through its Post Graduate and Doctoral level programs, Executive Training Programs, Research and Consulting Activities.
It has produced notable alumni like Patanjali G. Keshwani, Founder Lemon Tree Hotels- Batch 1983; Haresh Chawla, Partner India Value Fund Advisors - 29th batch; Meena Ganesh, CEO – EduRite - 20th Batch; K. Ganesh, CEO & Founder of TutorVista; Krishna Palepu, senior adviser- Harvard University; Rohit Pande, Founder – Classteacher Learning Systems:32nd Batch; Prof. Sushil Khanna, Non-Official Part-Time Directors – NTPC among others.
AACSB, The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business is based in Tampa, Florida in the United States; AMBA, The Association of MBAs, is based in London, United Kingdom; and EFMD which awards EQUIS Accreditation is based in Brussels, Belgium.
While IIM Calcutta already enjoyed accreditation by the 2 most reputed international accreditation agencies AACSB and AMBA, on April 12, 2016 the top rated B-school was also awarded the EFMD Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) Accreditation. EFMD is the globally recognized international organization for management development, with over 800 members from academia, business, public service and consultancy in 81 countries. The EQUIS Accreditation Board voted to confer EQUIS Accreditation on IIM Calcutta.
On achieving the rare feat of getting triple crowned IIM Calcutta sure enjoys the proud moment with a vision to contribute much more to management education. On the occasion Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay, Director IIM Calcutta shared exclusively with MBAUniverse.com the proud moments, benefits of international accreditation and future vision of the institute. Below are the excerpts of the interview with Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay
MBAUniverse.com: How do you see this great achievement which has made IIMC as the only B-school in India to get this rare recognition?
Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay: We are extremely proud of the fact that we are the first Institute in India to be accredited by the three leading international accreditation agencies, AMBA, AACSB and EQUIS.
We feel triple accreditation is just a recognition of the fact that we offer world-class management education to our post-graduate and doctoral students. The suggestions that have been made by the Peer Review Teams would enable us to make changes to our strategy and ensure that we continue to offer education of international standards.
MBAUniverse.com: What is the process to get the accreditation, how many B-schools enjoy the triple Accreditation across the Globe?
Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay: These agencies have rigorous processes for evaluating the academic quality of the Institute’s programmes, its efforts to develop ethical leaders, the impact of faculty research, quality of students, societal and professional relevance of its programmes, and assurance of learning.
Accreditation involved review by accreditation agencies of data that we submitted and peer-review visits where teams of Deans and Corporate Representatives visited IIM Calcutta to meet the Director, Deans, Faculty, Students, Alumni and Corporate Partners.
Achieving triple accreditation requires hard and sustained effort. That is why this is a very significant achievement – only 5 other business schools in Asia and 73 business schools around the world currently have the ‘Triple Crown’’ in accreditation.
MBAUniverse.com: Please share the strategy adopted by IIM Calcutta to achieve this triple crown accreditation.
Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay: When we decided to go in for international accreditation we were fairly confident that we had the internal systems and processes in place that would meet the stringent criteria set by these agencies.
-- We had instituted faculty development programmes to ensure that our faculty was trained in state-of-the-art methods in teaching and learning.
-- We had the necessary policy-framework in place to encourage faculty to undertake very high-quality research and this had resulted in larger number of faculty publications in top-ranked journals.
-- We also created a Case Research Centre to develop a resource base of India-centric case studies. Our Financial Research and Trading Laboratory was the best among business schools in the country.
-- We also had internationalization strategy in place and we had a large number of partner schools abroad.
MBAUniverse.com: What is the vision of IIM Calcutta after achieving this rare feat?
Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay: The vision of the Institute is to be an international center of excellence in all aspects of management education. While we are recognized as one of the leading management institutes in Asia, we feel we need to expand our horizon and compete globally. The landscape of management education is changing very fast. Management education institutions such as ours need to compete with the best institutions globally if we are to remain relevant in future decades.
MBAUniverse.com: How does International Accreditation would help IIM Calcutta to achieve the goal?
Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay: Accreditation is not an end in itself. While it is a major milestone for the Institute, it is also a stage in the process of continuous improvement. International accreditation allows us to benchmark ourselves with the best institutions globally and put in place a continuous improvement system which ensures that we enhance the quality of our post-graduate, doctoral and executive education programmes.
MBAUniverse.com: What are the beneficial implications to IIM Calcutta of this triple Accreditation from AACSB, AMBA & EQUIS?
Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay: Triple accreditation opens up more avenues for international collaboration. Leading business schools abroad are increasingly developing partnerships only with accredited institutions. We have 97 partner institutions abroad most of which are leading business schools in their countries. This includes 29 partner schools which are part of CEMS, the global alliance for management education which offers the ‘Masters in Management’ Programme, which was ranked fourth world-wide in the 2015 Financial Times MiM Rankings.
MBAUniverse.com: How would this top rated international triple accreditation benefit the students of IIM Calcutta?
Prof Saibal Chattopadhyay: As we have a very large student exchange programme, developing more partnerships with leading business schools will enable our students to study for a term at leading business schools abroad. Exchange students who come to India also choose schools based on rankings and accreditation which gives our students a better cross-cultural experience. Triple accreditation and the fact that our PGDM programme is ranked 16th in the world in the FT MiM rankings enables us to attract the best students from our partner institutions.
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