IIMs to share admission information

Updated on: Friday, November 04, 2011

IIMs will share information on admission to avoid confusion among students.

To ensure that no seat in the new IIMs remains vacant and to ease the pressure on students, the premier B-schools will share admission information among them and post inpidual admission criteria in their websites.

Besides, the IIMs will look into the possibilities of offering programmes in non-core areas like health, education and infrastructure, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said today.

Sibal, who chaired a meeting of heads of all the 13 IIMs here, said there was "broad consensus" among the directors on most of the issues including coordination on the counselling system and on the number of teaching hours.

Talking to reporters about sharing admission information, he said the move will ensure reduced pressure on the old IIMs in matters of admission and equal distribution of candidates. He said IIMs would now increasingly focus on the social sector on problems of relevance to the society and there was a "consensus that we must shift away from business to non-core areas".

According to Sibal, an expert group would be constituted to chalk out the requirements of the Indian economy and other fields like health, education, infrastructure where IIMs expertise could be put to good use.

"IIMs will take a lead in conducting programmes and develop curricula relevant to the specific fields such as health management and agriculture management," he said. Every three years there would be an external review of each IIM to weed out any deficiency in them and correct any shortcomings, he said.

Sibal made it clear while it not its intention to interfere in the functioning of IIMs, the government should "have powers to interfere in cases of aberrations". Elaborating on admission information sharing and its benefits, Sibal said IIM-Ahmedabad for example can pass on the admission cut-off list to newer IIMs who can then decide which are likely ones to get admission and so on.

Officials said the step will not only help students but also benefit the new IIMs to fill their seats. During the last counselling, new IIMs including the one in Raipur had problems filling the seats. He dismissed the suggestion that there were objections to 160 hours of teaching annually and cited IIM Kolkata "which has already given a workplan for 180 hours".

Sibal said the revised memorandum of association and rules of IIM Ahmedabad and Indore have been finalised in matters of autonomy which include autonomy in selection of directors. He said the issue of upgrading of hostel and residence was also discussed for which provisions would be there in the 12th Plan period. "The move could be extended to IIT system," he said.

A plan has been approved for enhancing research in IIMs and increase the output of PhDs, he said, adding, "Besides, Rs 95 crore have been approved for an additional 100 PhDs from the IIMs."

He said IIMs will hold roadshows abroad to attract international students and share faculties for delivering inter-disciplinary courses once all the institutes are connected through the national optical fibre network. The external review of the IIMs would be of the nature of "social audit" to find out if the IIMs are going in the right direction, what is the quality output etc., he said.

Asked whether the proposal for holding common interview and group discussions was discussed, Sibal replied, "Admission to every IIM is sacrosanct", indicating that it did not find favour at the meeting.

IIMs to share admission information

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