Indian Institute of Management - Tiruchi (IIM-T) has decided to retain Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) as the nomenclature for its flagship two-year programme though students will receive degree certificates as Master of Business Administration (MBA).
The institution has thought it fit to refer the programme as PGPM for maintaining the brand identity, sources said. The seventh annual convocation for students of 2018-2020 batch conducted earlier this year witnessed the IIM-Tiruchi awarding MBA degree as per the IIM Act, 2017 for the first time instead of Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) given till the previous year.
The MBA degree was awarded for students of Post-Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) and Post Graduate Programme in Business Management (PGPBM), offered on the Chennai campus. In all, 169 graduands of PGPM and 41 graduands of PGPBM were awarded MBA degree. The degree certificate mentions the qualification as MBA on successful completion of the PGPM programme.
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The IIM Act 2017 that raised IIM-Tiruchi to the status of an institution of national importance, empowered it to grant MBA degree while specifying attainment of standards of global excellence in management, management research and allied areas of knowledge.
Earlier, IIMs were separate bodies registered under the Societies Act. Since Societies are not authorised to award degrees, those pursuing Masters and doctoral programme (Fellow Programme in Management) were awarded PGDM and Fellow titles respectively. While PGDM and Fellow titles are recognised by AIU as equivalent to MBA and Ph.D., at the international level, MBA degree is better recognized than PGDM for global employment opportunities. Top B-schools in the world offer MBA degree and not PGDM, according to a senior management faculty.
The Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) is also not universally accepted. IIM-Tiruchi has gone ahead with changing the nomenclature for FPM as Doctoral Programme in Management, as per the IIM Act, 2017.
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