Sustaining Academic Excellence Position Paper by IIMA Faculty

1. Sustaining Academic ExcellencePosition Paper by IIMA Faculty April 2, 2004

2. Autonomy and Excellence • Functional autonomy is essential for IIMs, if they are to retain and enhance their capacity for Excellence • Such functional autonomy is not possible without financial independence Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India, Report and Recommendation of the Committee to Review the functioning of IIMs (Kurien Committee) July 1992

3. What is functional autonomy? • Academic Autonomy: Freedom to choose mix of activities, courseware, method of instruction, external teaching resources • Institutional Autonomy:Freedom to decide framework and structure for decision making processes, internal governance system • Administrative Autonomy:Board & Society for policy guidelines, encompasses full freedom in recruitment • Financial Autonomy: Freedom to raise resources and decide items of expenditure, kind of infrastructure to be created, User charges to be levied, eg. IAS programmes, 3i-network

4. Has “autonomy” got dented? • Ministry changing selection process of the Directors of IIMs • Ministry canceling the CAT test unilaterally • Ministry putting pressure on the IIMA to sign a MoU containing restrictive clauses • Ministry claiming a veto power on the efforts of the Institute to extend its geographical reach

5. Has “autonomy” got dented? • Ministry attempting to reduce the corpus of the Institute • Ministry ordering that fee be set at Rs. 30,000 without going through the steps of time-honoured consultative process and “unilaterally” shutting doors for alternate ways to achieve the intended social objective • Ministry officials threatening dismissal of members of Society, Board, and Director • Ministry claiming that IIMs should manage with lower number of teachers without taking into account its impact on activity mix and quality of our educational programmes

6. Heart of the Controversy:Fee Cut Order • MHRD and honorable Minister’s objective • We honour the objective and faculty would like to assure that it will do its best to achieve the objective • In total congruence • Absolutely no difference in views

7. Then what is the problem? • Fundamental problem to be addressed is: “What should be the fee of management education so that it becomes accessible to economically weaker section of the society” • If problem seems to be complex, apply the principle of breaking into sub-problems • (a) What should be the fee of management education? • (b) Given above fee, how it can be made accessible to weaker section of the society

8. Another solution to achieve the same objective (a) What should be the fee? • Fee should be on the basis of costs (in line with the principle laid down by TMA Pai case) • Our costs are Rs. 2.8 lakhs • How does our fees compare with others (eg. ISB) (b) Given above fee, how can it be made accessible to economically weaker section of society • Through Scholarships

9. Does IIMA have Scholarships? • CAT Bulletin • Lady student about to return home for lack of funds, daughter of a school teacher in tribal area of north eastern state, 2003 batch • Son of a single parent working as dishwasher and floor cleaner • Scholarship for what all items: • Stitching a suite, home travel, laundry, phone calls • Excellent examples of what Autonomy can do to providing Scholarships

10. Are these stray incidences? • Let us look at data of last 20 years:

11. Is providing scholarship at variance from Govt. Policypronouncements in last 10-15 years?

12. Current Govt.’s Thinking(as per Vision Document 2004) Making quality education affordable to a common Indian family. No student should be deprived of access to higher education for lack of resources. Hence, scholarship and soft loans should be made widely available.

13. Then what is the issue? • Perhaps we have not communicated properly to MHRD that we are in total agreement on the objective but differ in our understanding on what is an appropriate solution to fulfill the objective • Perhaps consultative process has not been taken forward • Perhaps we have failed in adequately communicating and sensitizing MHRD about our governance & decision making processes evolved over several years • May be we missed experimenting with “Jadoo ki Jhappi”! • We perhaps need to strengthen the scholarship scheme and give it a wide publicity

14. Institute’s Mission and Objectives • Meet the demand for managerial talent to support the growing Indian Economy • Support the globalization of the Indian economy • Contribute to the development and governance • Build world class infrastructure • Reduce the financial burden on govt.

15. Conclusions • Autonomy and financial independence key elements for our growth and excellence • Accountability: Performance, obeying financial norms and delivering on social commitments • Top 50 achievements of Independent India • Feel sad, hurt, demoralized when pillars of our foundation, namely autonomy and supportive stance of govt., are shaking • Also feel shocked and surprised when all policy pronouncements, in last 10-15 years, suggest that Govt. wants to take autonomy to its next orbit

16. Current Govt.’s Thinking(as per Vision Document 2004) • De-bureacratising the administration of our educational institutions; • Autonomy to centers of excellence; • Empowering teachers; • And maximizing community participation

17. ThankYou!