Spurt in student exchange courses

Student exchange programmes or SEPs appear to be the flavour of the year. IIM Bangalore (IIM-B), for instance will shortly tie up with Columbia, Cornell and California universities for the programmes.

The institute recently tied up with Stanford University towards this end. IIM-B already has 65 such tie ups with various universities across the world and similar offers from other universities. The institute, however, is careful on while choosing its partners. IIM Calcutta, on the other hand, will shortly be tying up with MIT's Sloan School of Management for a student exchange programme.

The institute which so far has 36 tie ups with international universities for a similar arrangement, is also looking tying up at possible research collaborations with international universities for its economics department.

Similarly, IIM Ahmedabad which so far has 40 such tie ups in place, is also exploring international SEP opportunities further. 
 

INSTITUTE	SEPs
IIM-A	40
IIM-B	65
IIM-C	36
IIM-K	7
IIM-I	5

IIM-A director, Bakul Dholakia in an interview to this paper earlier, had said, "Rapid change in the Indian economy and the shift towards India and China has led to a spurt in global collaborations in the world. If the IIMs do not keep pace with these rapid changes and turn out the same kind of students they did 10 years back, they would be total misfits."

IIM Indore too has five international tie ups in the offing. The institute which already has five student exchange programme agreements with universities in the US, New Zealand, China and France is now looking at European and Scandinavian countries.

"Business today has become far global. It is effective to breathe that air, walk on the alien terrain to have an international exposure for students to become global managers," says S P Parashar, director, IIM Indore.

However, IIM Kozhikode is going slow on such international collaborations. The institute so far has seven such tie ups in place. "Exchange programmes involve huge expense on part of the students and since many students are not taking foreign jobs, we are going slow on this. We are, however, looking keenly at having research exchange with other universities," says Krishna Kumar, director, IIM Kozhikode.

However, the IIMs say, interest of foreign students coming to India is more than the Indian students going abroad. Last year 63 international students came to IIM-A and comparatively just 53 went abroad. It's not only the IIMs that have SEPs.

Other prominent B-schools like MDI, Gurgaon, IMT, Ghaziabad and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi, to name a few, too have it.

With foreign governments taking interest in awarding more and more scholarships to the students, such exchange programmes will only see a surge.

WHAT ARE STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMMES

In an SEP arrangement, Indian students go to a foreign university for a semester of three months for study and work exposure. Once back, the students give a presentation to relevant faculty member and also brief their juniors.

In most cases, the students bear the expenses but the respective countries which have a tie up with an institute, also give scholarships. Banks too sponsor such trips for students.

On an average, a student spends anywhere between Rs 2.5-4 lakh, based on the country chosen. SEPs work in two ways. One it gives the student an international exposure. Two in due course, it gives institutes the power to issue dual- and trium degrees (Three institutes come together for a programme and award degrees).

In a trium degree, the student will go to three different countries for the course. It also serves as a branding exercise. For instance, under the Stanford-IIM B-student exchange programme, Reliance Industries MD, Mukesh Ambani has offered to bear 75 per cent of the programme cost for IIM-B students. In fact, hordes of corporates are keen on sponsoring the students for such exchange programmes.

At IIM Calcutta, the institute has been approached by various corporate houses for a similar sponsorhip. Many of them being major investment banking and consulting firms. Diamond Technology and Management Consulting firm already offers a sponsorship of Rs 1.35 lakh to two of its students each, every year.

The IIMs say this is a good branding exercise for the firms.