B-schools to oppose UGC bid to curb autonomy

Leading business schools are likely to oppose a move of the UGC to affiliate them with state-run universities, which will curtail their autonomy, a delegation of management institutions has said.

Deans and chairmen of B-schools offering post-graduate diploma in management (PGDM), described the Dec 23 University Grants Commission (UGC) proposal as retrogade, similar to the December 2010 notification issued by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which was suspended by the Supreme Court.

A delegation of the Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI), an apex organisation representing more than 500 management institutions in India, will be meeting Union Human Resource Development Minister M.M. Pallam Raju and UGC chairman Ved Prakash.

The delegation, comprising chairmen and deans of B-schools, will appraise them about the collective stand taken by 300 PGDM institutions to protect an autonomy they have exercised for more than 50 years, according to an EPSI press release.

They said the UGC move, if implemented, is likely to halt the current momentum in management education, as an inevitable result of rigid controls similar to those imposed on state universities.

These universities known to be mired in red tape, lethargy and corruption, have little affinity with innovation and professionalism which is a sine-qua-non for business education, the press release added.

The Association of Indian Management Schools (AIMS) and Indian Association of Autonomous Business Schools (IAABS), two other apex bodies representing management institutions, have seconded the stand.

EPSI, AIMS and Jaipuria Group of Institutions had filed three petitions in February 2011 against the AICTE 2010 notification. The matter is pending before the Supreme Court.