1. Sixty Years of Indian Management
Education: Key Milestones
Before we look at this broad framework of ‘Vision 2025’, let
us review the history of Indian management education, which
reflects a mixed journey spreading over five decades.
Origin and Growth of B-schools
Management education in India is almost 60 years old. Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, is credited
with creating centres of excellence in higher education outside
the university system. He wanted to establish MITs, and
Harvard Business Schools in India which were to emerge as
centres of academic excellence in technology and management,
the two important disciplines; IITs and IIMs were,
thus, born.
However, initially, management education in India began
as a part-time education for practicing executives. Xavier Labour
Relations Institute (XLRI), established in the year 1949,
was the pioneer in the field. The first postgraduate program
in management was launched in 1954 by Andhra University,
Waltair. By 1959, nine universities started offering part-time/
full-time MBA programs.
In 1962, the Government of India established Indian
Institutes of Management at Calcutta and Ahmedabad. Thus
began the era of full-time postgraduate education in management
in India. Soon several commerce departments in
universities reoriented their curriculum to offer MBA degrees.
In the subsequent decade, only five more programs were
added, of which two were of the Indian Institutes of Management
at Ahmedabad and Calcutta. Subsequently, forty-four
more programs were launched during 1969-79, increasing
the total number to 87 by 1989. By this time, two more IIMs
were added—IIM Bangalore in the year 1973 and IIM Lucknow
in 1984.
After this slow start, where less than hundred MBA
programs existed in 1990, coinciding with the economic liberalization
in 1991, the number of MBA programs in India
boomed in the 1990s.
By 2000, there were 744 MBA programs in India—up from
a mere 87 in 1989!
Growth in Business Schools
Figure 1 The trend of growth in Business Schools (1958-2000)
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The saga of expansion of MBA education continued unabated
since then.
With the liberalization of Indian Economy and IT revolution
in the post-1990, B-schools have expanded scope of
specialization in finance, and marketing areas during the last
decade. The phenomenal growth of MBA or its equivalent
Postgraduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) was largely
triggered by the growth of corporate sector and industrialization
in India. Since Business School graduates played a critical
role worldwide in building competitiveness of enterprise and
industry, MBA education emerged as the most wanted subject
in higher education. Increase in demand for professional
managers has also fuelled the growth in number of Business
Schools in the country.
According to the official AICTE data, there are more than
3900 Management Programs running in India today! In 2013,
the number of MBA institutions was 3644 and PGDM institutes
counted for 308 (Table 1).
Table 1 University MBA Programs and PGDM Approved
by AICTE in 2013-14 |
| Region |
No. of PGDM
Institutes |
No. of MBA Dept/Institute
in Public University |
| Central |
30 |
367 |
| Eastern |
31 |
155 |
| North-West |
40 |
513 |
| Northern |
90 |
539 |
| South-West |
22 |
272 |
| Grand Total |
308 |
3644 |
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Source: AICTE Handbook 2013-14
The total number of AICTE approved seats in B-schools
has shown a fourfold increase in the last 7-8 years. While,
the number of AICTE approved seats in management education
was 94,704, in 2006-07, which went up to 3,85,008 in
2012-13.
Increase in AICTE approved B-schools |
| Year |
AICTE Approved |
% Increase (YoY) |
| 2006-07 |
94,704 |
— |
| 2007-08 |
1,21,867 |
28.6 |
| 2008-09 |
1,49,555 |
22.7 |
| 2009-10 |
1,79,561 |
20.0 |
| 2010-11 |
2,77,811 |
54.7 |
| 2011-12 |
3,52,571 |
27.0 |
| 2012-13 |
3,85,008 |
9.2 |
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Source: AICTE
Similar trend of growth was seen in IIMs too, which
have expanded in the last 15 years; IIM Kozhikode and IIM
Indore came up in 1996 while IIM Shillong was set up in 2007. Subsequently, IIM Ranchi, IIM Rohtak and |
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