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Govt
says IIMs should cut faculty or increase seats
The
Union HRD ministry and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) seem
to be headed for another confrontation. Shastri Bavan mandarins have
been telling IIM officials during discussions that the B-schools are
overstaffed and under worked, so they should either downsize faculty
or increase seats.
According
to the ministry, there is one teacher for every five students at IIM
Ahmedabad. At IIM Bangalore, the faculty-student ration is 1:4. IIMs
at Kolkata and Lucknow have one teacher for every seven students and
IIM Kozhikode has one for six.
The
ministry seems to ignore the ration at the world’s top business
schools. The London and Chicago business schools, among the top 20,
have one teacher for every three management students. At Stanford and
Yale business schools (among the top five), the ratio is 1:4. Carnegie
Mellon has a teacher for two students.
Moreover,
IIM-A was recently rated 45th in the Economist Intelligence
Unit’s list of the world’s 100 best fulltime programmes. A healthy
teacher – student ratio was a criteria for the ranking, besides
personal development and employment opportunities.
But
the ministry too has some statistics up its sleeve. Officials say, “
In Germany, the student-teacher ratio is 30:1 and the minimum teaching
hours are 18 a week. But in India, we don’t seem to be following
these standards. There is a huge demand for MBAs, but these institutes
have simply shut the door on thousands of students.”
“The
IIMs don’t lack funds. The bigger IIMs have cash reserves of almost
Rs 100 crore each. They can afford to increase seats,” said an
official.
Experts
say that though it is not correct to say the IIMs are overstaffed,
It’s true that it is possible to increase student intake. M K
Chaudhuri, director of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management
and a former professor of IIM Bangalore, said the student-faculty
ratio at the IIMs was just fine. “The present faculty can do justice
to the increased number of students. But even if they have to increase
faculty because of more students, the IIMs can afford it, “ he said.
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