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| HT EDUCATION,29-04-15,NEW DELHI |
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‘IIM-Indore messed up my daughter’s studies’
- 29 Apr
2015
- Hindustan
Times (Delhi)
- Jeevan
Prakash Sharma jeevan.sharma@hindustantimes.com
A distraught father speaks out
against a controversial five-year management programme at IIM Indore which
adversely affected his daughter’s academic plans
WHEN I MADE ENQUIRIES I WAS TOLD BY AN IIM-I OFFICIAL
THAT THIS FIVE-YEAR COURSE WAS NOT EQUIVALENT TO A DEGREE PROGRAMME AND THAT IIMS
AS A RULE DON’T HAVE DEGREE GRANTING STATUS
TD RAGHAV, retired scientist, csir
When his daughter cleared the entrance examination and
interview for admission in a five-year management course - integrated programme
in management (IPM) - from the internationally-acclaimed Indian Institute of
Management, Indore, TD Raghav’s joy knew no bounds.
A 65-year-old retired scientist from the Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Raghav was so convinced that
management training would be ideal for his daughter and open up a lucrative
career path for her that he persuaded her to drop her BSc life science course
in Miranda House, Delhi University, and join IIM-I.
Little did he realise then how much his decision would
affect the young woman’s career. She had to drop out after a year as, according
to allegations by Raghav, the “institute not only concealed crucial facts of
the course from its students, but it also had irrelevant course content and
illegal passing criteria.”
Raghav’s daughter cleared IIM-I’s entrance test and the
interview for the programme in 2012. He deposited ` 1.80 lakh in two
installments as fees for the first semester, but when in October 2012, the
father and daughter reached IIM-I for her orientation session, some parents
asked the then director N Ravichandran if the institute had the mandatory
approvals to start the course. “The director then did not disclose anything and
just said that the IIMs are autonomous bodies which do not require any approval
from any regulatory body,” Raghav adds.
The retired scientist suspected something was amiss when
his daughter was asked to choose a course for doing her graduation from the
Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) with her IIM-I programme. “When
I made enquiries I was told by an official of the institute that this five-year
IPM course was not equivalent to a degree programme and that as IIMs don’t have
degree granting status the IPM would not give any student any degree and it
would remain a diploma course,” says Raghav.
Then came the shocker. Raghav was told that IIM-I had
signed an MoU with Ignou to enable IPM students to simultaneously do an
undergraduate course and get a degree from Ignou. “This was shocking. At no stage
from the entrance exams to the interview did IIM-I inform students that this
course would not be equivalent to a degree programme. After paying around ` 3
lakh I could not ask my daughter to drop out,” he says.
Each year, in the five-year course, was divided into
three semesters. So a student did the first, second and third semesters in the
first year, fourth, fifth and sixth in the second year and the seventh, eighth
and ninth semesters in the third year after which a diploma was awarded. The
other two years were for completing a post-graduate diploma programme in
management. The fee for the whole IPM programme came to about ` 23 lakh.
Still confident, however, that, a renowned institute
would not let a student down, Raghav after every semester paid the fee for the
course. Almost a year later in July 2013, however, he received a communication
from IIM-I asking for ` 1.39 lakh as fee for the fourth semester, which he
paid. Assuming that his daughter had been promoted to second year, he was again
shocked to receive a letter from the institute in September informing him that
his daughter had failed the first year and would have to repeat all the three
semesters for the first year, and even pay the fee.
“When I confronted the officials of the institute and asked
them how my daughter had ‘failed’ after clearing three semesters and paying the
fee for the second year, the authorities asked my daughter to drop the course
and go home. When I asked for her mark sheet, officials told me it was uploaded
on the internet. When I couldn’t find it online I asked for a hard copy. They
refused and I had to make a personal request to an official there to arrange
for one,” says Raghav.
When he got the mark sheet, Raghav was surprised to see the course content.
In the first year of IPM, compulsory subjects included swimming, physical
training, Bhagwad Geeta, introduction to biology, foreign languages such as
French, German etc.
“My daughter had failed in some courses such as swimming and physical
training, but she had cleared the other management-related courses. The
institute, however, refused to listen to my grievances,” alleges Raghav.
Later, he got another email from the institute informing him that the board
had considered his plea for leniency and had wanted his daughter to repeat
semester two and three of the first year. She would be allowed into the second
year only after she cleared both. “What kind of leniency is this? Repeating two
semesters means repeating the first year. It shows that there is no norm in
place to run this programme. It’s running on the whims and fancies of the head
of the institute. I suggested that they let my daughter continue her second
year and also appear for the other courses of swimming and physical training,
which she had failed, but the authorities refused,” says Raghav.
“My daughter refused to repeat the second year and dropped out.
Since we were told she had not cleared her course in September 2013 she lost
that academic year too. Now she has stopped talking to me and blames me for all
her problems. I filed a case in National Commission for Scheduled Castes
against IIM-I, which is still pending,” laments Raghav.
SEE THE DIRECTOR IIM - INDORE , RISHIKESHA T KRISHNAN'S ARROGANT ANSWER -
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