The ‘Two-campus programme’ launched by the Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad this year has received the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approval. The first year of the PGDM programme will take place at IMT’s Dubai campus while the second year will be at IMT Ghaziabad.

This is the first of its kind dual-country programme to receive AICTE approval and has begun work on September 30.

Though announced in May 2010, the programme was hanging in mid-air, awaiting the AICTE nod. According to Dr Arun Mohan Sherry, Chairman, IMTs Joint Admission Committee, IMT was clear that it would start the programme only after the AICTE’s approval.

Though the planned intake for the programme announced by the b-school months ago was 120 students, it has managed to fill in some 100 students in its first year. According to Dr Sherry, arrangements have been made to make up for the loss of 3 months that the course has taken to start up.

“We have set up structures and systems in place which will help bridge the gap,” he said. Incidentally, in many other b-schools placements processes are already in place by now, to which Dr Sherry replied that the placement teams in IMT’s new programme have also been set up.

The course had only a day of orientation on September 30 and lectures began on October 1, 2010.

In May this year, Dr Sherry had told PaGaLGuY that IMT was planning to fill up the Two-campus programme seats with students who were on the waiting lists for the fulltime PGDM programmes of IMT Ghaziabad and Nagpur. When asked about the quality of students who have undertaken the new course (since they preferred to wait for 4 months instead of enrolling in another b-school), Dr Sherry replied that the students were specifically those who wanted global exposure and had work experience in some top companies. Some students of this programme have work experience in companies like Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, he said.