Now the tough part

After being the bad guys for refusing to implement the then Human Resource Development Minster Murli Manohar Joshi's diktat on slashing fees some years ago, the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is probably the current HRD Minister Arjun Singh's blue-eyed boy. For, after saying it needed at least four years to increase seats by 54 per cent, as recommended by the Moily panel on seat reservations for other backward castes (OBCs), IIM-A has now come out with a plan to do this within three years""seats will be increased by 10 per cent in the coming academic year, another 18 per cent in 2008-09 and finally 26 per cent in 2009-10. IIM-A's decision has now put pressure on the other IIMs as well as the Indian Institutes of Technology to fall in line.

Making the announcement is the easy part. Implementing the policy while retaining quality will be the key and there is no indication as yet that IIM-A has come out with any formula to achieve this""indeed, the IIM-A board of governors will meet again in mid-December to discuss ways to increase faculty strength. IIM-Bangalore already has a shortage of 16 faculty positions out of a total sanctioned strength of 89, and the position at some other IIMs is reported to be still worse. In the case of engineering institutions, according to the UR Rao report, the shortage of teachers with MTech and PhD qualifications is between 60 and 80 per cent. If each IIT and IIM is to now increase the number of students by 50 per cent over three years, this shortage will get a lot worse. Recruiting teachers from other professions, even from abroad, is a solution that is worth trying out, but this requires a flexibility in salary and recruitment structures that no government-funded institution has. No matter what Mr Moily may recommend, it is difficult to see how bureaucrats will suddenly give up their power over these institutions so as to allow them a free hand while expanding""in any case, if salaries at IITs and IIMs are to be increased overnight, this will set off an agitation for similar structures in other universities. It is a matter of relief that someone should so blithely preside over the IIM-A Board of Governors that assumes it'll now get a completely free hand. Or that the government will change overnight to allow it acquire land in next to no time.

The solutions proposed by the Moily panel don't offer much hope on the quality front either. Waiving PhD requirements in what the report calls "functional subject areas" in the IIMs is hardly designed to maintain quality standards. And it does seem to be the case that increasing the share of non-faculty positions will have the same impact""Mr Moily is in favour of increasing non-faculty positions to as high as 60 per cent of the total! And now that the increased number of seats that Moily was first happy to see happen in five years (in the interim report) has to be compressed into a three-year time frame, the relaxations that will be required will probably be even greater. A word on the maths is also in order here. The Moily report had calculated that it would require a total of Rs 240 crore to deliver the results as far as the IIMs are concerned""Rs 130 crore in terms of the capital grant and another Rs 110 crore of recurring expenses over five years. But just two IIMs, at Ahmedabad and Bangalore, have estimated their capital costs at around Rs 130-140 crore! The next three years will be eventful ones for India's premier educational institutions as several of them will almost certainly fail to make the mandated transition while maintaining even today's standards.