In a first-of-its-kind move, the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will be subject to an external peer review every three years, which would look at their performance and make them more accountable to the government.
?The peer review will be discussed at the IIM council meeting as it is the best way of (ensuring) accountability. This will be a social audit to see the quality of output of the IIMs,? said Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal after meeting the chairpersons and directors of the 13 IIMs.
Reviewing the process of investing greater autonomy on IIMs, Sibal said that the revised Memoranda of Association (MoA) of IIMs at Ahmedabad and Indore have been finalised, while the process of revision of MoAs of Bangalore, Lucknow and Kozhikode are under way.
?There was a consensus that the government should ultimately have the power to intervene in case of aberrations and take corrective steps, but we will not interfere in their academic and administrative decision-making,? Sibal added.
On the issue of a common admission policy, Sibal said that to ease the pressure on students and assist the new IIMs in their admission processes, the big IIMs would share their admission information and coordinate their counselling systems with the small ones.
The contentious issue of the number of classroom teachers hours remained, with Sibal saying that the IIMs had agreed to 180 hours, more than the government’s proposal of 160 hours. The IIM directors, however, denied it.
“We didn’t agree with this proposal,? said a director from one of the old IIMs. P Rameshan, director of the new IIM at Rohtak said: ?Some faculty members are already doing more than 180 hours and those doing good research were getting a relief from the mandated classroom teaching hours.