AICTE bars universities from offering PGDM and MBA courses simultaneously

Government or private universities will no longer be able to offer both PGDM and MBA courses simultaneously and will have to chose either of the two, the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has said.

The technical and management education regulator of the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has said Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) courses can be run by standalone institutions, which are neither universities nor affiliated to any university, similar to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).

"Over a period of time, deemed to be universities have added PGDM course under the banner of 'Management Programme' in contravention of norms. According to the AICTE Regulations, 2020, conducting PGDM and MBA courses in the same institution is not permissible," a senior AICTE official said.

"Central, state and private universities and institutions deemed to be universities, which are running PGDM and MBA courses under the banner of management programme, are requested to convert all courses into MBA completely and comply with the AICTE norms," he added.

According to the regulations, institutions affiliated to universities have the option of either converting all PGDM courses into corresponding MBA courses with respective university affiliation or vice-versa and run those under a separate standalone institute.