Edu-leaders

Condemning the decision of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Association of Indian Management Schools (AIMS) and the Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI) have decided to file a writ petition in the Delhi High Court saying that it could hamper the quality of management education in the country. The petition will be filed by February 14, 2011.

The institutes are hoping to counter a notification issued by the AICTE on December 28, 2010, which was in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Courts. The PIL sought to regulate the admission process and curriculum for all Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) courses. The notification dictated that B-schools cannot conduct their tests for the PGDM courses. A few of these institutes include Xavier Labour Relations Institute, SP Jain, Birla Institute of Management Technology and Management Development Institute among others.

Several management schools are also against the decision of the Council that makes it mandatory for every approved PGDM programme to be conducted over 24 months.

Most of the institutes accept scores of entrance exams like CAT, XAT, MAT and ICFAI. There are also institutes that enrol students for their PGDM programme without any entrance test.

The notification also prevents institutions from conducting their second round of selection to their PGDM programme – group discussions (GD) and personal interviews (PI), and have them conducted by the state government instead. The Council also made it binding that only the competent authority of the respective state governments can conduct the admission to the PGDM programme of the management schools approved by it. The aim of the notification is to bring down the number of admission tests that students have to take, reduce travel time and costs that students incur on the same, and control the malpractices that a number of institutes resort to during admissions.

More than 250 management schools are members of the EPSI.

The schools also say that the following the notification would lead to destruction of the autonomy they have in the admission procedure. More than 200 B-schools that met in the national capital yesterday are deciding on the steps that need to be taken.