Private management institutes seek parity with IIMs to woo students

Fearing that the degree-granting power to the prestigious IIMs would rob them of their sheen, private institutes offering diplomas in management programmes on Wednesday resolved to press for similar status to woo students to their campuses.

At a meeting in New Delhi, convened by the Education Promotion Society of India (EPSI), representing management institutes, about 30 such institutes decided to take up the matter with the HRD Ministry and seek legal opinions on the matter.

Execuitve president of EPSI, H Chaturvedi said that they will ask the ministry to "give a level playing field to the self financing institutions as the degree-granting power to IIMs would put them in a lot of trouble".

"The overall consensus was parity with the IIMs by giving degree-granting power to the private management institutes," said one of the institute heads present at the meeting.

The fear of the institutes stems from the Indian Institute of Management Bill 2015 which seeks to accord degree-granting powers to the IIMs, who have been offering diploma programmes so far.

Private institutes are apprehensive of the fact that students and parents would lose interest in them once the IIMs have the degree-granting power. They contend that either affiliation to the universities or deemed-to-be-university status would enable them grant degrees.

The announcement of new IIMs and increase in number of seats to these institutes has further added to the woes of the private institutes who are battling a host of issues including infrastructure shortcomings, faculty and quality of the programmes offered.