B-schools to take regulatory tussle with AICTE to court

“All management institutions have voiced their concerns regarding the fact that no such regulatory regime is required as it will spoil whatever the private players have done in the space of management education. We are taking legal opinion against the legality of the AICTE notification,” said H Chaturvedi,alternate president of EPSI and director of Birla Institute of Management Technology (Bimtech).

The AICTE notification stipulates that all PGDM programmes will be of duration not less than 24 months and admission to all PGDM courses shall be done through common entrance test such as CAT/MAT or examinations conducted by the respective state governments for all institutions other than minority institutions. This maybe worrisome for the B-schools as admissions for their programmes will begin soon.

“These reforms in management education are required in public interest,especially in case of issues related to admissions and fee. We want a central admissions authority to look after admissions in these courses while the state fee committees should be responsible for issues related to fees as is done for every other discipline be it engineering,pharmacy or architecture,” Prof SS Mantha,acting chairman,AICTE told FE.

At present,there are 3,800 AICTE approved management institutes that have almost 4 lakh students studying in them with 60-70 institutes being added to the list every year.

Mantha added that even the regular MBA programmes are under the purview of the council then why should PGDM programmes be left out.

“PGDM is the only programme outside the council’s purview and we can’t have programmes running all over the country without any knowledge of their fee,admission,reservation and students who are enrolled in them,” he added.

An official who attended the meeting said that the management schools found these norms regressive as they take away their autonomy while the AICTE stood its ground due to which the B-schools plan to approach the court. Besides associations of management schools,the meeting was attended by deans and directors of 25 management institutes like MDI Gurgaon,Mudra Institute of Communication (MICA) and Bimtech,among others.

“We are considering something on legal grounds as such a regulation will take away the diversity and variety from management education by making us a part of the lowest common denominator. Quality will be affected leading to brain drain. Moreover,no universities abroad have such regulated framework,” said Ashok Ranchhod,director,MICA.

However,the council is unperturbed with the institutes’ plan of action. Said Mantha: “These reforms will be documented and if they want to take any legal recourse,they can. It is a democracy.”