To cater to the growing demand for quality management education that provides multi-cultural exposure, Manila-based Asian Institute of Management (AIM) is planning to establish a campus in India. The institute’s alumni (numbering about 35,000) are located in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines. AIM has substantial Indian student intake ranging between 30 per cent and 50 per cent for full-time management programs. In 2008, 160 students from India were admitted in two batches of the MBA program.
Institute director, Francis G Estrada, in an interview with Business Standard, said: “AIM is an Asian Institute and is not just for the Philippines. We are thinking of creating campuses beyond the capital Manila and are looking at proposals to establish presence in India.”
Some Indian business houses wishing to diversify into education and some existing management institutes have held discussions with Estrada to explore the prospects for setting up base, another AIM official said.
Currently, AIM is partnering the Xavier Institute of Labour Relations (XLRI) for conducting executive programme. Besides exchange of faculty for research and teaching, AIM is helping XLRI to increasingly use the case method for management courses.
Estrada said: “A strategic partnership is the way to go. While we have learnt a lot through from western management education, there are themes like family business, Islamic finance and management and public private partnerships for infrastructure projects. For all of these, we need to design specific training modules. We have to train managers to work in multi-cultural settings, it no longer adequate to have functional and conceptual skills. The institute is also exploring plans to develop program for state-owned enterprises in Asia using Indian expertise and assistance.”