No MBA entry without a test

Updated on: Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Pulling up states that admitted management aspirants on the basis of graduation scores, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has ruled that a student can't be enrolled in a post-graduate management programme without entrance exam marks.

Several states including Maharashtra, opened their gates to students who hadn't taken any entrance exam. In 2010, close to a mind-boggling 6,351 MBA seats remained untaken despite the state government throwing all entry norms out of the window and allowing students who didn't take the common entrance test to get into the Masters programme. Initially, there were 11,000 vacancies and then the government opened the gates to everyone. Despite that, thousands of seats lay unfilled.

The MBA programme, which has seen a major expansion with the opening up of new colleges, has also never before witnessed more than a few hundred seats going vacant. Currently, there are 24,995 seats in Maharashtra's 366 management colleges. Across India, there are close to 4 lakh MBA seats. The notification comes weeks before a slew of management entrance tests are to be conducted, and AICTE has ruled that the MBA or the PGDBM programme would have to be two-year long.

Although there were several suggestions that the AICTE allow institutes to offer a one-year MBA course, like in the UK, an expert task force ruled against it. To bring about some parity among management graduates, the council would develop a model curriculum for all management schools, as also fees charged by B-schools would have to be approved by the fee fixation committee of each state. Lastly, admission to the courses shall not start before 31 March of the academic year; the session will begin from June 1 to May 31 of succeeding year.

Times of India

No MBA entry without a test

More Education news