Spread over 103 acres and with more than 1,000 students, the nearly 60-year-old Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) recently sought a loan of Rs 316 crore from the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) to upgrade its infrastructure and increase the intake of students. IIM-A authorities have plans to construct 10 lakh sq. ft of academic and support facilities, including a separate housing facility for teachers, students and staff, a new academic complex and a state-of-the-art sports complex and sports field. In a letter to the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry, IIM-A director Errol D’Souza wrote that the institute wanted to introduce more programmes and accommodate 380 more students to meet the growing need for well-trained and skilled professionals in various fields of management.
It’s this constant striving for improvement and expansion that sets the country’s best management institute apart. Not surprisingly, it has once again emerged as India’s best business school in the India Today Group’s annual ranking of business schools. While its position among national business schools has remained unchallenged for several years, both IIM-A and its programmes have also consistently ranked high in various international rankings. In 2008, IIM-A became the first management school in the country to be awarded European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) accreditation by the European Foundation for Management Development. According to the latest Financial Times ranking, IIM-A is the second best management institute in Asia and 19th best in the world.
However, it isn’t the only IIM to bask in global gloryIIM Calcutta and IIM Bangalore have bagged positions among the top five in Asia and top 30 in the world. India is fast turning into a destination for management studies, with students from 64 European, African, West Asian and other countries showing interest in the courses being offered by the country’s business schools, reveals Study in India, an initiative by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a global association of 223 leading graduate business schools. To turn India into a global management education centre, GMAC joined hands with the top nine B-schools of the country in 2017, opening the doors for international aspirants to pursue management education here.
In this year’s India Today rankings, while there is hardly any change in the top 30 positions from last year, the most significant jump has been by IFIM Business School, Bengaluru (from #48 to #28). It is one of the 15 Indian management institutes to have The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation, the highest for B-schools across the world.
[“source=indiatoday]
