On Friday, HRD Ministry has announced that IIMs cannot issue one year postgraduate management degree as it doesn’t fall under University Grant Commission (UGC) guidelines and says to take corrective measures into the matter, as learnt by MBA Rendezvous. Earlier this year, the HRD ministry showed its concern on the subject matter, but IIMs had said that they are just following the IIM Act 2017. As per UGC Norms, institutes or colleges can only offer 2 year Master degree program as per 3+2 higher educational format and the one-year program will be referred as PG Diploma Program, unlike foreign institutes where they follow 4+1 higher education model and offer a one-year executive MBA program.
HRD ministry has written to all the Directors saying. “all IIMs are directed to act as per the provisions of the IIM Act, 2017 and the interpretation of Department of Legal Affairs that in awarding degree, the institutes are required to act in conformity with UGC Act, 1956”.
On 31st January 2018, the IIM Act 2017 came into force. Clause 7 (f) of the Act reads “ to grant degrees, diplomas and other academic distinctions or titles and to institute and award fellowships, scholarships, prizes and medals, honorary awards and other distinctions”. After being granted autonomy, IIMs started a one-year executive MBA degree instead of PG diplomas. Prestigious IIMs like IIM Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Calcutta and Indore are offering one-year executive MBA programs and some other IIMs are planning to execute the same.
The Department of Legal Affairs has also said, “ for award of MBA degree to participants of one year Post Graduate Programme in Management in Executive, the institutes are required to act in conformity of UGC Act, 1956”.
In this entire situation, it is still unknown whether the institutes will be forced to drop their one year executive MBA offering or UGC will come up with some new guidelines for specific degree programs.
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