Agree completely with you. I feel that every year a survey should be done on existing B Schools, and if over a 4 year period they are able to justify their ability to be an IIM, they should me made IIMs. Of course, the barrier should be high enough to ensure that this is not a marketing gimmick and more of a systematic and continued effort by both students and admin of an institute towards becoming an IIM.

In fact, perhaps there could be 2l evels of accreditation.

1. IIM Acredited B School
2. Deemed IIM

Level 1 can be reached after matching placements and contests won, papers written etc. by students
Level 2 can be reached after being in Level 1 for atleast 4 years. Of course, this is assuming the institute wants to attempt coming under the IIM Brand.

@ Shubham:

“The government just announces plans for new IITs and IIMs without any real infrastructure / faculty / resources”

Agreed! I guess that is purely political. I see no other reason to it. State-politics, regionalism and pressure from state level political parties on the govt. are all rooting for this unwanted phenomenon

@ Atul and the 2 levels of accredition:

That my friend is in fact a wonderful idea. But lets just see if there are bad sides to its practical applicability.

One might be tempted to think that your solution has a probability of opening pandora’s box, in two ways:

1) It is pressurizing students in one more channel if such a huge parameter is introduced (to say go from level 1 to level 2) .

Anyway, the methods of evaluation will always end up getting affected by several extraneous factors like corporate interventions, evaluation subjectivity etc.,

A close example to this would be the countless random surveys on B-schools and their lack of Universal acceptance.

2) What would happen if “affiliations/accreditions to IIMs” are introduced. In the long run, there again lies the possibility of taking a very “engineering college kind of scenrio” .

For eg. JNTU in A.P state was a highly respected brand . But now thanks to around 200 institutes getting accredited or affiliated to it, it is not considered as great as it was.

@ overall article:

A very timely and contemporary article. Would request the author to write more perspectives on the topic, maybe explore other angles with discussions with the Strat team.

~Good going

Ghost Runner: Your example is relevant, but I think there is scope for what I said. You say students will have to then fight it out – But tell me something don’t B School students fight it out anyway – you and I have seen it. We fight in competition with other schools, unlike any Engg college. Also, we are not looking at random colleges all over the country when talking about accreditation. But look at top private colleges like SP Jain and XLRI – I think they will miss out if the Government keeps making an IIM Shillong rather than promoting these good colleges to become even better. I think those colleges deserve to be IIMs much much more than a new IIM (No offence meant to any one or any institute, what’s done is done).

What can be factors for accreditation? There should be a few members from the existing Board of IIMs who look into this. Rather than getting them to spend time in mentoring new schools set up as IIMs, they can come up with a uniform policy for accrediting B Schools. I think they should rather give incentive to private colleges to rise higher, than use 3 letters called IIM to randomly get in new schools into the picture.

@shubham
I completely agree with the statement that “The government just decides to increase the number of IITs & IIMs without taking a good look at the available infrastructure”.
If we are thimking to open new IITs we should ensure that the existing IITs have sufficient faculty members and infrastructre. I am a student of IIT-Delhi and i have seen students being crammed into hostels. The living conditions of the students is getting worse year by year. Moreover, classes are held in batch of 100 to 200 students.
Taking the case of new IITs, none of them have got their own building except IIT patna, where classes are being held in a polytechnic. The most pressing problem is of teachers. Faculties at IIT-D says that they are being requested to teach at IIT-punjab on weekends. This is a completely ridiculous step considering the workload that the professors have. Above all, the government is doing some kind of injustice with professors on their income. The recent strikes in IIT-Bombay & IIT-Delhi proves it effectively.
Opening new IIT is not a bad decision, but like the case of Roorkee, we should try to affliate existing institutes with name of IIT rather than opening new ones. It would at least ensure that there is enough faculty and building where students can study rather than a single IIT catering the needs of students of 2 institutes.

I am kind of tron between two arguments

On one hand, I tend to agree with Shubham, Atul, Ghost and Ankur that institutes of such reputation should not be started without proper infrastructure.

On the other hand, I feel that people should realize that this is exactly how the earlier IITs started their operations. Take the example of IIT KGP – it started in a 3-room house at Esplanade, Kolkata, and even at KGP, all operations were carried out in a single building for 3 years. Once this phase passes (birth pangs, as I would like to call this phase), things would fall in place.

About the shortage of faculty, there is are strict existing norms about IIT PHDs becoming professors. Relaxing them slightly won’t harm the quality, but ensure a steady supply of faculty. However, the salary angle would have to be taken care of.

As far as questions of brand dilution are concerned, I think the fears are misplaced. Those who go for placements, consultancy projects etc would know what they are walking into. And to cope up with an increasing population of young minds needs more such educational institutes

Shubham and others, just as an afterthought, go through these two articles:

Govt raises pay for IIT faculty: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090917/jsp/frontpage/story_11506926.jsp

More NITs on the anvil : http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090917/jsp/nation/story_11504991.jsp

I think these two might be positive steps in the direction of both lowering the congestion of IITs, and getting standard faculty

hi

Kaushik I do not agree that not having a PhD doesnt hurt the quality much.

Infact, good Ph D ensures that people are taught which is recent and new in terms of technology. It brings to these institutes the experitse which will define the world in years to come. This is the purpose.

Hi,

Some very interesting comments above. I will like to bring a new angle to the discussion and this is regarding ‘Whether we need more IITs & IIMs?’ and not touching on how it is done for now.

In my opinion, it is unfair to club IITs and IIMs in the same bracket. While we do need more IITs, we can do without adding more IIMs.

They are two very different types of programs and have to be dealt very differently – IITs are predominantly undergraduate programs and are related to science/technology, a field which requires state support across the globe. Plus these program users are kids who are supported by their parents. Hence, we need more investments in the space by the government to encourage technological developments plus to ensure social justice. However, IIMs are purely post graduate management programs for adults/professionals who are good enough to support themselves. Govt. should not waste the precious money for supporting programs which do not merit any subsidy. Rather they should let the existing institutes have total autonomy and let them grow organically. Plus make good regulations for pvt institutes and let in best of global univs and we will have a thriving b-school ecosystem without any investments from govt treasury.

Please comment.

If a country to prosper, it should startoff with education. So, first the primary education and secondary education (uptil 12th) should be considered first. I have a contrarian view, when it comes to establishment of more IIT’s and IIM’s. We need institutes of excellence and not only just IIT’s and IIM’s with just basic infrastructure. Also, when it comes to the history of IIT students most of them are drifting towards money instead of pursuing their ambition. So, before talking about the IIT’s and IIM’s the govt. should concentrate upon improving the primary and secondary education facilities which could help build a nation of literates. The best thing is they should have been done 20 yrs before and the next best thing is doing it right now.

The Government should first justify its logic to open seven new IITs and IIMs. Why was there such a hurry? Is there a formal structured plan to be implemented? How will world class faculty will be inducted when even the old IITs feel the crunch? Certainly, this idea of opening so many central universities at one go seems irrational and not well thought off. Many of the new IITs do not have their own campuses and are running on other IIT campuses. IIT Kanpur has already expressed its dissatisfaction at the overburdening of its faculty and resources. No doubt, these require mentoring, but not at the cost of the existing ones!. Why not scale up of one of the existing NITs to IIT or open uo new IITs in a phased manner? If the Government wishes to maintain the IIT brand, it has got a lot of work to do than squabbling with the faculty. Better prevent and prepare than repent and repair.

Hi,
First Let me add one more prospect. As at many reputed B Schools, do have intakes of such cream students that they are highly comparable to IIMs. For eg. MDI, SP Jain, IMT etc are the same institutes which take CAT under its consideration for admissions. and these students are the cream students who just missed IIMs either by waiting lists or due to earlier any academic glitches. and now these institutes are ranked from 5th to top 12 or 13th ones. But as we are increasing IIMs and then the ranking of these reputed institutes go down. The main problem will be with the future of the now students of these reputed institutes. As whosoever could take in an IIM out of those 14 IIMs in future and deals with being more competitive and comparable to the MDians, IMTians etc. Also since at that time these institutes will be ranking lower, then what is the use of pursuing courses with such a reputed institutes after paying hefty fees. All the companies will prefer IIM student and the brand image of these institutes will dissolve creating darker future for its students.