IIMs granted full autonomy with powers to grant degrees
28 Jan 2017
The union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday approved the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bill, 2017, which grants them full autonomy and the status of 'institutions of national importance', enabling them to grant degrees to their students.
Indian Institutes of Management are already the country's premier institutions imparting best quality education in management on globally benchmarked processes of education and training in management. IIMs are recognised as world-class management institutions and centers of excellence and have brought laurels to the country. All IIMs are separate autonomous bodies registered under the Societies Act.
Being societies, IIMs are not authorised to award degrees and, hence, they have been awarding Post Graduate Diploma and Fellow Programme in Management. While these awards are treated as equivalent to MBAs and Ph.D, respectively, the equivalence is not universally acceptable, especially for the fellowship programmes.
Highlights of the Bill:
- IIMs allowed to grant degrees
- Complete autonomy to the institutions, combined with adequate accountability;
- Management of these Institutions would be board-driven, with the chairperson and director of an institution which will be selected by the board;
- Provides for greater participation of experts and alumni in the board;
- Provision has also been made for inclusion of women and members from scheduled castes / tribes on the board;
- Provides for periodic review of the performance of institutions by independent agencies, and placing the results of the same on public domain.
- The annual report of the institutions will be placed in the Parliament and CAG will be auditing their accounts, and
- Also a provision of coordination forum of IIMs as an advisory body.
