Thursday, February 02, 2006

So, there is indeed a price to going global!


The IIMs' freedom to go global did not come free. Not surprisingly, they have been told "opportunities for students in the country need to be expanded by increasing intake, creating additional infrastructure and introducing new courses."

Okay, some face-saving stuff was needed for each side to step away from the confrontation that they set themselves up for. The government asked for increased intake, and the IIMs agreed. Great, right?

It sounded great to me too, until I read this bit at the end of the report:

or the next academic session, nearly two lakh students have appeared for the common admission test (CAT). Of these, only 1,200 will finally make it to the six IIMs. Mr Singh also asked the IIMs to set up new campuses and programmes in the country. Professor Apte said that IIM-B proposed to increase its intake from the current level of 250 students to 300 in ’07. Similarly, IIM-Calcutta’s Shekhar Chaudhuri said IIM-C proposes to increase intake from 270 to 300 .

Just yesterday, I wrote about IIT-Kharagpur's plans for its intellectual property law program. Specifically, I said it was refreshing to see its creators think big, and talk about expanding the intake, within three years, to 800. My understanding is that, globally, the big guns in management (Harvard, Kellogg, Wharton) have huge graduating classes. Our own biggie in the private sector, the Indian School of Business, admitted 349 for its class of 2006 (according to this page). It has been in business for less than a decade! Business press keeps talking about its big plans to eventually go to some 700+ graduates every year.

Autonomy does have its price, but it's not too high!

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