Deccan Herald says the One year MBA is the first MBA in India

We have been saying it, students have been saying it, and now the press seems to be saying it too. After persistent efforts by the One year MBA community in India which has been working to raise awareness of the course, students, HR and media seem to be understanding the proposition of a One year MBA as the first MBA in India.

The fact that the course is not some quaint specialized course for managers, nor an ‘Executive MBA’, nor in fact an ‘MBA for executives’ is only now becoming clear to most.

To recap for people new to the debate, an MBA degree is meant for experienced people by definition. If one traces the source of the confusion around the One year MBA one realizes it stems from the less than accurate branding of the two year Programme in India – referred to in an interesting play of words as ‘MBA equivalent ‘ by institutes when in fact the course is a pre-experience Masters in Business Management (MBM)/Masters in Management (MIM) as per the accreditation awarded to the course by the Association of MBAs, UK.

The two-year courses in India are meant for a class without work experience and as per AMBA “the class must average five years of work experience” to be accredited as an MBA. All MBA courses you are familiar with whether one year or two year in duration such as the MBA at Harvard, Wharton, Kellog, INSEAD, Oxford etc mandate on an average five years of work experience and hence their flagship course qualifies as an MBA.

Amazingly, to differentiate India’s first management course to mandate experience vis.a.vis a two-year programme, B-schools in India have been using the word ‘executive’ as as a suffix (MBA for Executives) or prefix (Executive MBA) to a One year MBA. The fallout is that students think of the One year course – a full time residential MBA as some sort of Executive course, which is a completely different part time degree worldwide.

In terms of branding, the situation is akin to naming a two wheeler a car and then when a car is manufactured promptly branding it a motorbike simply because the word ‘car’ has already been assigned to a different product.

What is surprising is that the Association of MBAs accreditation has been sought by B-schools in order to establish themselves as global institutes. Having gotten accredited (a huge achievement in itself) they somehow seem hesitant to communicate clearly on the accreditation status of the one year and two year courses in India. For instance IIM Lucknow doesn’t clarify in its communication that its two-year course is accredited as a Masters in Business Management and not an MBA and that its One year course is accredited as an MBA.  Check the communication from IIM L here (http://bit.ly/17xE8jr) and the AMBA accreditation for the courses at IIM L here (http://bit.ly/iimlaccreditation)

This may be due to the fact that the two year programme at IIM has been in existence longer and fresh graduates aspire to the programme as their ticket to an MBA. Prospective aspirants of the two year course might be disillusioned to know that the course they intend to pursue is not an MBA as per the course’s international accreditation and that may have a bearing on the admissions rate.

One would think, that being government institutes, the IIMs would not be overly influenced by such factors. First and foremost, as institutes meant to further the cause of management education in India, one expects them to lead on clarifying these realities to students.

It is time B-schools in India put aside history, and come together to sort these confusions in the interest of the students. The branding of the One year MBA can be clarified as an MBA and the two year course can be rebranded as an MIM (masters in Management) to reflect its international accreditation. You can read about the accreditation at these links – (http://bit.ly/iimlaccreditation), (http://bit.ly/spjainaccreditation) & (http://bit.ly/mdiaccreditation)

All in all great job Deccan Herald. The article can be read at – http://bit.ly/dhonoymba