IIM-A, IIM-C to up global tie-ups

With the hike in student intake on account of the reservation quota ready to be implemented, the IIMs have now set their sights on increasing the number of international collaborations to enable a higher number of students to study for a semester in a foreign university.

Both Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and Indian Institute of Management-Kolkata (IIM-C) are in the process of inking new international collaborations. IIM-A has also announced its plans to offer a higher number of inter-continental programmes.

At present, IIM-A has collaborations with Essec Business School in France and Duke Corporate Education, UK and is in the process of tying up with other major B-schools in US and Europe for the same.

"Building a global brand is high on the plans of IIM-A and keeping that in mind, we are in talks with some of the finest business schools in the US and Europe including Harvard, Sloane, Columbia, Boston and others, " said Bakul Dholakia, Director, IIM-A.

The inter-continental programmes, according to Dholakia will be one of the focus areas of the institute considering the increasing interest of foreign participants for the programmes offered at the institute.

Presently, around 7-8 per cent of the participants for the regular courses come from abroad and even the number of international students spending a semester in the institute has gone up which has fuelled the need for establishing inter-continental programmes with multiple institutes world-wide, said Dholakia.

IIM-A has around 40 international university tie-ups under which 65-70 students study for a semester in an international university every year. With IIMs having to expand their student intake following the reservation quota, a higher number of tie-ups would ensure that many more students get international exposure for a semester.

"Around 50 of our students study for a semester at an international institute each year and with the proposed hike in student intake from the next batch, we will be tying up with more international B-schools so that the students are not deprieved of the opportunity to study in a different academic envirnonment," said Shekhar Chaudhuri, Director, IIM-C.

IIM-C has been getting a lot of requests for collaboration from B-schools in the US and Europe and is in advanced talks with two prominent ones in the US, Chaudhuri told Business Standard. The collaborating institutes will contribute around 40 per cent of content once the agreements are in place, he added.

Apart from its global collaboration efforts, IIM-C is also mulling to set up new courses in Bio-technology Enterprise Management as well as infrastucture excellence, added Chaudhuri.