 "Govt may blink on IIM autonomy")
While no official communication has been received by the IIMs so far, sources say MHRD officials are unofficially reaching out to the institutes, to express concern over the matter and assure them that the question of their autonomy will be resolved satisfactorily.
The IIM directors Business Standard spoke to said the ministry might have been taken aback by the kind of response the lack of autonomy in the proposed Bill generated, especially from the older IIMs. The directors, however, did not wish to be named, because the matter was "controversial".
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"MHRD has realised that IIMs are serious about their autonomy. It has unofficially reached out to the IIMs, expressing concern over the issue and assuring affirmative action. The ministry might soon come back with a revised draft. But we have been demanding that the ministry give us something in writing," said the director of an IIM.
The draft IIM Bill, 2015, proposes to grant statutory status to 13 existing IIMs - those in Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Indore, Kozhikode, Shillong, Raipur, Ranchi, Rohtak, Kashipur, Tiruchirappalli and Udaipur - and declare those as 'institutions of national importance', to enable them to grant degrees to students for the academic courses they conducted.
However, the draft Bill also calls for subjection of the Board of Governors (BoG) to government control for any regulation - that is, for things ranging from appointing chairpersons and directors to fixing fees and staff remuneration, and deciding curriculum. The IIMs have argued that the current form of the draft is not what had been agreed upon by the institutes at their meeting with MHRD in October last year.
"Though we want to provide our students with degrees at the end of the course, we do not want that at the cost of our autonomy. There have been whispers about MHRD going back to the original draft of the IIM Bill, but we have not received any communication on the Bill so far. We would prefer to have the communication in writing," said the director of an IIM.
While some of the older IIMs (those in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Calcutta, Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode) are happy to continue offering post-graduate diploma in management (PGDM) certificates, the newer ones want powers to grant degree, since an MBA degree is believed to carry more weight in academics and industry than a PGDM.
In fact, it was this argument of the latter that the government had latched on to for proposing changes to the draft Bill.
"So far, these institutions could award only certificates, post-graduate diplomas, and fellow programmes in management certificates. These lacked universal acceptance in the field of academia and research. The PGDM programme was relatively unaffected by the absence of a formal degree, both in terms of recruitment of students and suitable placements in the job market.
But the fellow programme in management did not get the same status as that of a PhD in the job market, especially in faculty appointments. So, the fellow programme (equivalent to PhD), without the formal degree stamp, has not been able to attract talented students.
That is required to develop a strong research base in the country in the field of management education and to address the issue of faculty shortage affecting management institutions. The proposed Bill will address this gap," MHRD had said while putting up the draft online for public consultation.