Now, IIM aspirants don't have to wait to get a bachelor's degree before taking the entrance test; at least a few can hope to step into India's top management school right after school.
The Indian Institute of Management- Indore has launched a five-year integrated post-graduate programme in management - a three-year degree programme followed by masters. The first batch scheduled this year will have 120 students.
The five-year residential programme allows students to drop out after the degree course, designed to be a mix of essential skill subjects - maths and statistics, history, literature and political science, biological sciences, languages, finance and accounting, economics and information technology. Apart from classroom lectures, IIM-I has a component on international exposure and an internship at a social organization.
The minimum eligibility is 60% in Class XII, and final selection will be based on an aptitude test and interview. The details will be revealed in a few days. The tuition fee for the first three years will be Rs 3 lakh per annum; for next two years, it will be Rs 5 lakh a year.
"IIM Indore wants to have a dominating presence, both in terms of size and impact, in all segments of management education, including under-graduate programmes," said IIM-Indore director N Ravichandran. "We identified four streams - top-end research programmes, executive education programme, the flagship post-graduate programme and an integrated PGP where we'll have the time and opportunity to shape young minds towards management education."
Every IIM grad will tell you that a faculty or two would have at some point of time said IIMs are not good at baby-sitting. For years, IIMs stood by that line - they forayed into developing special programmes for corporates and running courses for executives. With the Indore institute bucking the trend, many other IIM directors felt the image of management schools would take a beating.
Ravichandran doesn't agree. "I don't think the new programme will dilute the brand value of IIMs, particularly IIM-Indore. I think it will strengthen it. Nobel laureates in the West teach undergraduate students and we won't compromise on quality of any of our programmes," he said. "I feel IIMs have to invest in young minds."
