Indian Institute of Management - Tiruchi (IIM-T) will start offering MBA degrees henceforth.
IIM-Bangalore and a few other IIMs have already started granting MBA degrees after the passage of IIM Bill, 2017, in Parliament last December.
The Bill paved way for the IIMs to offer MBA degrees instead of PGDM (Post Graduate Diploma in Management) certificates, and doctorates instead of fellowships.
The IIMs could not offer degree or doctorate programmes till last year since they had been set up as societies, under the Societies Registration Act. Only universities and affiliated colleges were permitted to offer MBA degrees.
The decks were cleared for IIMs to offer MBA degrees as they have now been declared as institutions of national importance, and been granted greater functional autonomy.
The IIM Bill has conferred the institutions the status of universities with statutory powers to offer masters degrees and doctorates.
While the PGDM offered by the IIMs are considered equivalent to MBA, the fellowship programme is not considered internationally as a doctorate degree.
The MHRD had taken a stand that the IIMs were free to offer MBA or PGDM.
"We will discuss the matter with our Board and take steps to award MBA degree henceforth," IIM-T Director Bhimaraya Metri said.
Though the sixth convocation of IIM-T was conducted during March, 2018, the time was not sufficient to get the Board's approval.
Also, a section of the candidates had preferred the PGDM certificate as that was the nomenclature of the programme at the time of their admission.
