The Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad is starting a new PGDM programme titled the “Two Campus Programme” which will have students studying in Dubai during the first year and in Ghaziabad in the second. While the programme on paper seems to be a fitting need of the present cry for international exposure, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is yet to give the programme its final nod. However, Dr Arun Mohan Sherry, Chairman, IMT’s Joint Admission Committee, says he is confident of getting the approval soon. The course has a capacity of 120 students.

Additionally, IMT Ghaziabad has increased its intake for the flagship PGDM programme to 400 students and above and the IMT Nagpur PGDM intake to 368. The college put up a new waiting list yesterday (May 7, 2010) to take in the added 120 students who stand to take admission in the new Two Campus Programme.

The Two Campus Programme follows a new kind of structure wherein the students will spend the first year of the PGDM at IMT’s campus in Dubai and the second at IMT Ghaziabad.

The orientation program and placements of all the course’s 120 students will take place at the IMT Ghaziabad campus. The faculty for the new programme will be roped in from IMT Ghaziabad and a pool of international experts. According to Dr Sherry, the total fees for the Two Campus Programme works out to Rs 15 lakhs, about 20% more than the fees for the regular Ghaziabad PGDM programme whose fees has been increased to Rs 11 lakhs. The fees figures given on the IMT Ghaziabad website are obsolete, he said. Incidentally, the fees for the IMT Nagpur PGDM has been escalated to Rs 9.5 lakhs.

Dr Sherry also added that the syllabus for the Dubai leg of the Two Campus Programme will be tailored along international lines though the college’s official website details very similar curriculum for both the regular PGDM and for the Two Campus programme. To which Dr Sherry responded that the case studies in the Two Campus Programme will be more international in nature. Students would have a choice of undertaking their summer internship either in India or Dubai. The internships for the Two Campus programme will dwell more on global concepts and a multiculture environment, he added.

Institutes which want to add new courses need to seeks AICTE approval under the All India Council for Technical Education Resolutions 1994 (Annual Regulations 1997/2000) (see guidelines).

Management courses created with international collaboration have not had the best track record of existence in India. Two years ago, the AICTE had banned SP Jain, Mumbai’s dual-degree Post Graduate Diploma in Systems Management and Masters in Information Technology (PGDSM-MIT) course it had started in collaboration with the Virginia Tech University, USA.

Dr Sunil Rai, currently CEO of Mumbai Business School, Mumbai and the former Joint Director of SP Jain said that AICTE basically did not approve of overseas programmes. It only allows foreign programmes when the university can run the same programme in India and abroad, and offer the same degree. This is to protect student interest since any one degree should not be looked at as inferior. Of course, in that case too, the course will be bound by the rules of the respective countries but essentially be the same course.

According to Dr Sherry the Two Campus Programme will not meet the same fate as PGDSM-MIT since it is structured differently.

He explains that IMT already has an exchange programme in place wherein students go to IMT Dubai for 3 or 5 months. The Two Campus Programme can be looked at like an extension of an exchange programme, only it is a new course by itself.

We will be offering a degree from IMT Ghaziabad at the end of the course and not from Dubai. Which is why getting the AICTE approval should not be an issue. We are neither offering a dual degree nor is the degree going to be given from Dubai. The degree will be given by Ghaziabad after the completion of the second year in Ghaziabad,” he said.