Old IIMs have their say; no centralised admission system

In a set back to students, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have refused to conduct centralised interviews, group discussions and counselling for admissions.

However, three IIMs - Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkatta - will conduct interviews in one city. Their interviews will be stretched over two days.

A centralised admission process was mooted to reduce the burden on students who currently travel to different cities to appear for group discussion, personal interview and counseling for admission to IIMs of their choice. The centralised admission system would have led to all interviews conducted at one place, and IIMs could have picked up students from the merit list.

Such a centralised system has already been adopted by the six new IIMs - Ranchi, Rohtak, Trichy, Udaipur , Raipur and Kashipur. The seven older IIMs - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Lucknow, Kozhikode and Shillong -continue to have their separate counseling and interview sessions each.

During the meeting of the IIM Council, attended by chairmen and directors of 13 IIMs, Union human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal and MHRD officials on Wednesday, it is learnt that the directors of the older IIMs maintained that each one of them has a different character and student requirement, hence, they cannot have a common admission policy. It seems Sibal, too, was not keen to push the matter too far and promptly agreed with them.

“It was felt that the admission policy of each IIM was sacrosanct. However, to assist the new IIMs in their admission processes, it was decided that the older IIMs would share their admission information with the new ones and coordinate their counseling systems,” said Sibal.

Meanwhile, while allowing higher autonomy in financial and administrative matters to the IIMs, the MHRD has kept the ultimate power with itself.

The government has also decided to fix accountability, and monitor performance of the B-Schools. The MHRD will conduct an audit of the IIMs every three years through an external agency to keep a tab on their quality of education, research and other outputs. Each year, four IIMs will be reviewed.

“Since more autonomy is given to IIMs, the question is on where the ownership should reside. It was agreed that even as IIMs have independence in academic areas, the government should have ultimate power to intervene so that we can take corrective measure when required,” Sibal said.