The special committee instituted by the Human Resource Development Ministry to examine ways to set up six new IIMs is not in favour of the Centres plan to make the existing IIMs mentor the proposed new ones. The expert panel,in its report submitted to the ministry last week,has suggested that the existing IIMs be allowed to set up branches and given freedom to grow rather than be asked to mentor the new IIMs in a forced collaboration. The committee,comprising two IIM directors and an IIT director,in its report also called for a tempered expansion plan for the new IIMs,suggesting extensive usage of technology for the new management institutes and advocating that IIMs stick to PG programmes and not undergraduate courses. The HRD Ministry had set up the expert panel to arrive at a solution and convey its views after IIM directors showed reluctance to mentor the new IIMs planned for Tamil Nadu,Jammu and Kashmir,Jharkhand,Chhattisgarh,Uttarakhand and Haryana,and refused to be compared to IITs,saying that unlike the latter they deal with PG courses and different pedagogical methodologies. Earlier,the government consultants Educational Consultants India Limited (EdCIL) had in its report advocated that existing IIMs mentor the new IIMs the way IITs were made to do in 2008 when six new IITs were set up. The handholding by existing IITs went as far as IIT Kanpur sharing its campus with IIT Rajasthan,and IIT Guwahati parenting IIT Patna. The ministry wanted to replicate the same model for new IIMs. While we welcome the move to expand IIMs and increase their capacity,we have suggested that IIMs be allowed to set up new branches, a committee member said. We feel that in the branch option,there will be higher motivation for existing IIMs to develop new IIMs with the benchmark quality standards that distinguish them as well as their own brand value will be at stake. If IIMs set up branches there will also be quicker transfer of skills,more integration and stabilisation and none of the teething problems that plague new institutes that are mentored, the member added. Incidentally,the HRD Ministry mandated IIM review committee report that came up in late 2008 had also recommended the mentoring plan,saying it would prevent IIMs brand equity from getting diluted by way of new institutes. But the recommendation was promptly rejected by IIMs citing limited faculty and resources. IIMs have in fact for long been trying to convince the ministry to allow them to set up branches but the request has not found much favour with the ministry. The expert committee,in its reaction,also disagrees with the rather aggressive 10-year-long expansion plan proposed for new IIMs by the EdCIL and has instead called for a more tempered approach. IIMs should not be viewed as institutes for mass production but as institutes that provide a benchmark in education, another committee member said. So any long-term plan with aggressive expansion is not very desirable as it is bound to affect quality. We have recommended a slower,tempered growth for the new IIMs. The committee felt that undergraduate courses would not be feasible and in keeping with the vertical application domain of IIMs, the member said. The committee has also suggested that the All India Council for Technical Education should crack down on poor quality of management education being imparted at several private management institutes.
