Learning curb

The latest challenge to IIM autonomy is counterproductive

The Ministry of Education’s (MoE’s) proposal to enhance its powers over the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) just three years after enacting a law granting 20 premier business schools sweeping autonomy is unlikely to help the government achieve its objective of making India a hub of world-class education. According to a report in the The Indian Express, the government is considering an executive order under Section 38 of the IIM Act empowering itself to institute an enquiry against an IIM board if the latter chooses to follow policies inconsistent with government thinking. Further, the inconsistency would be defined by the government. The provocation for this proposal is inexplicably petty. It revolves around a disagreement between the MoE and the IIMs on the latter’s plans to introduce a one-year executive degree for working professional. The MoE’s objection is that a one-year degree is not in accordance with the University Grants Commission regulations.

This is a strange objection for two reasons. First, the IIM Act of 2017 gave these institutions degree-granting powers and it was only after this that many IIMs converted their one-year diploma for working professionals into a degree. Second, the one-year degree for working professional is a global standard — which is a stated aim of the New Education Policy (NEP) that was announced earlier this year. Curbing this one-year degree could limit the IIMs’ ability to grow at a time when the NEP could lead to a growth in competing global B-schools setting base in India. In fact, the one-year degree would have aligned the IIMs more closely with standard practice in the US and Europe where professionals with some years of work experience enrol in B-Schools, unlike in India where undergraduates dominate.

This proposal, which is being scrutinised by the law ministry, not only marks a significant reversal of the government’s stand but reflects the regime’s general approach of command and control over the education sector in general and higher education in particular. In fact, the issue of IIM autonomy was a hard-won one, the culmination of a two-year stand-off between the MoE and the IIMs over the government’s role in these institutions that was eventually decided by the Prime Minister’s Office in favour of the latter. Then, the ambit of the IIMs’ autonomy was wide. The role of the President of India as a “visitor” was scrapped and IIMs were given the freedom to appoint board members and set fees. A year after the Act was passed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed this “landmark experiment” and reiterated the point that “the government will not interfere and no officer will have any role” in IIMs.  

The degree-diploma controversy could well be the thin edge of the autonomy wedge. If the government deems a relatively minor, some would say non-issue, such as this worthy of such draconian intervention, this proposal could open the door for all manner of other interventions — from appointments to recommendations on syllabi. With only three Indian universities figuring in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) top 200 World University rankings for 2021 and IIM Ahmedabad slipping 10 ranks to 50th position in the latest QS Global MBA Rankings, the government has little to be proud of in terms of its record for higher education. Such proposals are unlikely to improve matters.