According to a Livemint report, the government has decided to shut down the 5-year integrated course where one gets a dual degree Masters of Business Administration, offered across India’s many universities and independent business schools.
Such institutes generally offer undergraduate degrees at the end of three years, and Master’s degrees at the end of five years.
A circular issued by the All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE) said that such courses were not in line with University Grants Commission (UGC) approved programs.
The dual-degree courses have been closed and no fresh admissions will be provided from the academic year 2016-17, said a circular by the AICTE.
The students who are currently in their third year of such programs have the exit option of obtaining a BBA degree, and those in the fourth and fifth years would be awarded the BBA/MBA degree.
The exact number of institutions offering such courses and the number of students in such courses is not known, but a number of premier institutes in the country offer 5-year integrated MBA courses, including the Indian Institute of Management (IIM).
The IIM, however, does not come under AICTE purview, so this would not be applicable to their degrees.
Such courses were approved by the AICTE back in 2012-13, and in the 4 years since they have started in India, there has been huge demand for these courses.
However, the move by the AICTE may not be such a bad thing, as a recent study by ASSOCHAM found that most of the 5,500 business schools in the country are producing sub-par graduates, earning less than Rs 10,000 per month.
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