From the Director’s Desk

This year the new batch of PGDM (2011-13) had to wait for its selection and induction till second week of September 2011. Generally the course begins in June every year. As you know the delay was due to the elaborate procedure of approval by All India Council of Technical Education. (AICTE)  

 We were engaged with this activity for almost a year and it consumed a large part of our time.
However, we have now a first-hand experience of people, structure and processes of the apex body of Technical and Management Education in India, the High Court, and the state level bureaucracy.

There are many rules and regulations about approval process and these are available in AICTE handbook that runs into 200 pages. New applicants like IMDR have to register themselves as new institutes and hence our advantage of being the first B - School remained underutilized. The application was in electronic form but the paper work for supportive documents was enormous. The e- format is used for transparency rather than for reducing paper usage.

 My faculty colleagues and I presented our proposal to five expert committees. They verified the documents from legal, architectural academic and financial angles. The three member panels and offices of AICTE maintained the rigour of scrutiny consistently for all institutes and the discussion was conducted in groups in a large hall. The head office in Delhi has six Close Circuit cameras and the entire process is recorded. 

For us, it was a long and tedious process that tested the patience of every one connected with process, primarily the members of the Governing Council of the DES, staff and faculty of the institute. But the immediate benefits are obvious and some are listed below:

 * IMDR students shall have an easy access to educational loans from banks
* For placements Public sector companies and banks would accept applications.
* Those with academic interest can now apply to Masters programme in foreign universities and register for Ph D programme in Indian Universities.
* More importantly faculty and students of IMDR would not be required to be defensive and justify legitimacy of the institute..

Very soon the approval would be a thing of the past. The question is how do we see the future?
To my mind, the main strengths of IMDR have been:

a) A scientifically designed curriculum of three courses in International Trade, Human Resources and General Management ( Marketing, Finance, Operations) ; also the faculty and alumni expertise in these fields of professional management.   
b)  A stable group of visiting faculty with rich industry experience and a committed core faculty group
c)  An Academic and friendly ambience carefully nurtured on the campus
d) Original and time tested processes of competency based selection of students
e) Induction processes for first and second year students that help students internalize the
Vision of IMDR 
f) Summer and winter internship programme for full time students that is holistic and thus goes beyond on the job training or projects
g) An informal but strong Alumni community of three thousand students and numerous well wishers of the institute.
h) A Part-time course in Executive Development for working students (MDBA)

We would like to retain the above mentioned best practices of IMDR and strengthen the unique processes of teaching- learning on and off the campus. Fortunately, the requirements of AICTE are aimed at structural rather than process level. However, it would be a challenge to integrate   organically evolved educational processes at IMDR with mechanistic systems imposed by the apex body

We believe that with support of well wishers and alumni of the institute, we would be able to meet this challenge.

Apart from being successful in getting AICTE approval to the flagship course of IMDR, we also learned a few valuable lessons from this assignment.

1. First, we learned to live with the frustration caused by delay in getting the approval and in the process also learned to ignore negative comments from those who were sitting on the fence and ready to criticize in case we failed in our attempt this time. We also learned that those who manage change would be ready for the risk of failure and therefore it  needs high level of trust and teamwork among all stakeholders.    

2 The administrative procedure was entirely transparent and all relevant information was shared on the website. The expert committee remarks were available to us in our account on the web portal.  The Regional officer in Mumbai and the Chairman of the AICTE in Delhi remained firm and impartial throughout the process. They adhered to the decision taken by the professionals from the field of Law, Architecture and Academics and the procedures mentioned in the handbook were followed meticulously

3 Also, in a stark contrast to the popular perception of the young generation and the middle class all the people we encountered in DTE, PMC, Department of Town Planning, Collectors office, remained honest and seem to be working towards maintaining the integrity of system It may be an outcome of RTI Act   We were not required to spend a single additional rupee to favor anyone in these offices.

4 In the prevailing mood of cynicism and negativity towards the executive systems, we need to appreciate publicly such a behavior so that it reinforces positive attitude and behaviors. This would strengthen the institutional base of democratic processes in the country.

5 This does not mean that everything is OK with the system .The real issue in higher education in India is about the quality and employability of graduates. The hard factors like infrastructure, legal and financial documents can be verified by the experts hired form the field but the soft and invisible factors, educational processes and values that determine the quality of education are not covered by the current approval processes.

This is the area where the role of leadership in higher education and business as well would be critical. Professional bureaucracy of AICTE, though transparent and fair is not a substitute for an enlightened policy and value- based leadership at all levels of our institutions.

Indian middle class should actively invest their resources in building such a leadership. Negative criticism of the system from the location of a spectator- commentator, though supported by information technology and social media would not be a sufficient input to build strong India.

These are our learnings from the experience of AICTE approval to PGDM course. We think that it is worthwhile to share it with you. Your responses are welcome

 Susheel Kandalgaonkar 

Dr Susheel Kandalgaonakar