Business Schools in India have been tagging the word “Executive” to the one-year full time MBA programme meant for professionals with work experience to differentiate it from the 2-year post graduate diploma courses for which prior work experience is not mandatory. OneYearMBA.co.in has been campaigning for correct designation to prevent confusion not only among the applicants but even international ranking agencies that have been placing the one-year programme in the category of part time MBA for executives. Net result is that the program gets devalued.
Following our relentless campaigning, we are happy to note a positive development – Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIM-L) has dropped the word ‘Executive MBA’ in the admissions announcement on its website for the 9th batch of the full time, one-year residential management programme (International Programme in Management for Executives (IPMX) – the programme is designed for mid/senior level professionals, to prepare them for leadership roles.
Earlier, besides mislabelling the IPMX as an Executive MBA, IIM-L had dropped the details of accreditation their courses have received from the Association of MBAs (AMBA), the top global B-School accreditation body, in order to imply that all its courses have achieved the same standard. We had reported about these aspects that needed change in a report on OneYearMBA.co.in
AMBA’s accreditation standards are clear: an MBA course must admit students with 3+ years of work experience while an MBM can admit candidates with 0-3 years work experience. So students with less than 3 years of work experience are eligible to pursue an MBM, not an MBA. Since the two-year PGP/ PGDM courses in India largely recruit freshers (most admits have less than a year of work experience and many have zero work experience), these courses are accredited by AMBA as MBMs.
This stipulation is meant to ensure that an MBA course delivers on its stated goal of preparing mid-career professionals for leadership roles.
The Association of Universities (AIU) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), two Indian regulatory bodies, award ‘MBA equivalent’ status to two-year PGP/ PGDM courses offered by IIMs.
Earlier, the IIM-L web-site in the Accreditations page had stated that AMBA had accorded accreditation to the PGPM, IPMX and WMP programmes without specifying that PGPM is an MBM.
Now, accreditation details are clarified upfront in the IIM-L website page for IPMX with a link that clicks open at AMBA’s website that lists the three courses that had received AMBA accreditation.
Besides IPMX, the Working Managers Programme (WMP) part time course has been designated as a part-time MBA while the two-year Postgraduate Programme in Management (PGPM) gets MBM classification. The WMP is a Three Year (Part Time) Post-Graduate Programme in Management for Working Executives. The 12th batch commenced classes during last week of June, 2016.
IIM-L is not the only B-school that had chosen to hide the status of their two year programmes as MBMs. When Xaviers School of Management (XLRI) got AMBA accreditation, they similarly failed to mention that only their one-year course has got full time MBA accreditation from AMBA. When we contacted them, they shirked the responsibility of communicating and clarifying these details and told us that students can visit the website and check details of accreditation there.
IIM Indore also failed to communicate the MBA accreditation by AMBA for its One Year Full Time MBA (EPGP) and MBM Accreditation for its two-year PGP programme, which it positions as an MBA.
By not sharing the exact accreditation awarded to their courses, B-Schools are insulating their long running two-year courses from an adverse impact while at the same time claiming to live up to global standards.
Clarifying that the two-year PGP/ PGDM programmes are MBMs and not MBAs could kill the demand for these programmes. Since students need no work experience to apply to these programmes, lakhs of fresh graduates line up to enrol under the mistaken impression that they are getting an MBA.