19, Jan 2012

Indian business schools have done well in expanding themselves and attracting more and more students from overseas. To help the schools attract more students from foreign countries, there has been an initiative to allow them to admit students on the basis of globally recognized Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT).

Every year, as per government data, nearly 4,000 foreign students get education across all disciplines of higher education in India. But business schools want to increase the number of students to make classrooms more diverse. It will also help in improving their global ranking and presence as well as in gaining international accreditations.

The 13 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), India’s premier business schools, have decided to attract a bigger share of international students. To this end they are aiming hard to improve their brand equity to international levels so that more foreign students will consider them a preferred option. Last month the HRD ministry also gave them formal permission to take necessary steps, thus making it easier for India’s 3,000-plus business schools to attract more international students. Recognized and accepted in more than 110 countries, the GMAT score will now become the basis for enrolling students in programs offered by the IIMs.

According to H. Chaturvedi, director of Birla Institute of Management and Technology, “We all know the credibility of GMAT. Our schools’ diversity index is poor, and this works as a stumbling block whenever we apply for international accreditation. This will now be taken care of.”

The decision is part of the efforts of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the higher education regulator under the HRD ministry, to simplify the admission process for business schools.  The practice of business schools conducting their own individual entrance tests to admit students is gradually becoming less common. This year AICTE announced to stop this practice altogether and asked all B-Schools to select students on the basis of any of the following well-recognized tests:

1. The Common Admission Test (CAT), conducted by the IIMs;
2. The Management Aptitude Test (MAT), conducted by the All India Management Association;
3. The Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT), conducted by XLRI, Jamshedpur;
4. The Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET), conducted by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs); and
5. The national test conducted by the AICTE.

In August the IITs will do away with JMET and instead use CAT to select candidates for their management courses. The Graduate Management Aptitude Council, which conducts GMAT, welcomed the step. Ashish Bhardwaj, the council’s regional director for South Asia, said that “the government accepting us as one of the exams for admitting students in recognized business schools in India will help the sector get foreign students. This is a sweet crucial step in the direction of internationalizing management colleges.”