(Photo credit: IIM Calcutta by Velavan S)

The Indian Institutes of Management are considering forming an umbrella structure on the lines of an ‘IIM University’ that would offer a full-fledged Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree instead of the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) that they offer now.

The idea of an IIM University which would be headed by a Vice Chancellor or a Director General was floated during a high-level two-hour long meeting between the directors of the 13 IIMs and Union Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal in New Delhi yesterday.

“The idea of a university was discussed in the meeting for five minutes. It was felt that if we can offer an MBA degree it would be better,” the director of an IIM who was present at the meeting told PaGaLGuY on the condition of anonymity. “It will however take a lot of time for this to be implemented,” he added.

The IIMs have often blamed their absence in international b-school rankings and the inability to attract foreign students on the esoteric nomenclature of the degree they offer. While the rest of the world’s business schools offer an MBA degree, India’s b-schools offer a PGDM degree which does not generate recall on the international stage.

The ‘IIM University’ idea was mooted as an extension of the discussion on getting the IIMs to work in a closer manner. At present, the IIM Council comprising IIM Directors, the HRD Minister and key bureaucrats of the HRD ministry manage common affairs of the IIMs.

While the older IIMs ruled out a common admissions process at the meeting asserting that the admissions of each IIMs were ‘sacrosanct’, they agreed to collaborate to the extent of sharing their admissions lists with each other and promoting research with the help of an international conference and a common research publication.