The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore will admit more students to its various courses and take steps, such as admitting interns, to boost research, Prakash G Apte, director of the institute said.
The institute's vision committee has come up with suggestions on benchmarking IIMB with the best management schools in the world, including encouraging more research, Apte said.
IIMB will take 60 more students for its flagship postgraduate programme (PGP) in management, starting this year. This will take the total to 250, Apte said at the institute's 30th convocation in Bangalore.
The intake will also be increased for the post-graduate programme in software enterprise management (PGSEM), an MBA programme for software engineers, from 120 to 150, he said.
Financial aid has also been increased for needy students, from Rs 75 lakh (Rs 7.5 million) this year to Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) for the academic year, starting June 2005.
The graduating class of 2005 had 192 PGP students, 54 PGSEM students, 28 post-graduate programme in public policy and management students and four fellow programme in management (FPM) graduates who earned doctoral degrees. Last year, there were seven FPM graduates according to IIMB's annual report for 2003-04.
IIMB has changed its PGP curriculum to reflect its aim to be a globally recognised business school. Its courses will also reach more people, from the academic session starting June 2005.
The PGSEM will be beamed, via satellite, to a campus in Chennai, set up with sponsorship from Infosys Technologies. An executive general management programme reaches 40 classrooms in 24 cities and a one year web-based certificate programme on advanced financial risk management will be launched in April 2005.
An off campus centre will be set up in Singapore that will offer executive programmes and a part time two-year MBA programme, Apte said.
To increase the research output and quality at IIMB, a committee has been set up to find ways to scale up the FPM. The committee's recommendations will form the basis for admissions from June 2006.
The IIMB Management Review, a journal, will hold its next conference in July 2006, on 'Global Competitiveness Through Outsourcing: Implications for Services and Manufacturing'.
That there were only a handful of research students for some 87 faculty -- including 19 visiting faculty -- at IIMB shows the need to bring in more research students.
The institute will admit interns to scale up long term teaching programmes and to emphasise research. The interns, aiding research and teaching, will help the faculty focus on long-term teaching and research programmes, he said.
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