{"id":93498,"date":"2021-03-25T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T11:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=93498"},"modified":"2021-03-25T17:02:22","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T11:32:22","slug":"declining-autonomy-of-indian-institute-of-management-iim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/declining-autonomy-of-indian-institute-of-management-iim\/","title":{"rendered":"Declining Autonomy of Indian Institute of Management (IIM)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/in-recent-controversies-iims-and-the-question-of-autonomy-7220044\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Indian Express<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Syllabus<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: GS 2 &#8211; Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector\/Services relating to Education\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Synopsis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The recent attempts of intervention in the functioning of IIMs raise concerns with respect to the degree of autonomy enjoyed by them. The powers of government and board of governors to intervene in the institute\u2019s functioning needs re-examination.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Background:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently a challenge to institutional autonomy was posed in IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In IIM Ahmedabad, <\/span><b>the institute\u2019s director pressured by the government <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to re-examine a controversial Ph.D. thesis on electoral democracy. The director although refused to comply with the government&#8217;s order.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similarly, in IIM Calcutta, <\/span><b>the director was stripped of its power <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of making appointments and taking disciplinary actions, by the board of governors.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Autonomy Prior to IIM Act 2017:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The IIMs functioned as societies and enjoyed significant autonomy in academic matters including fee determination.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The independence of fixing the fees in older IIMs (Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Bangalore, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Indore) <\/span><b>ensured they are not dependent on government funds<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, the appointment of the director and board of governors was done by the government that reduced IIM&#8217;s autonomy. This gave them sufficient scope to intervene.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Friction was observed in some instances, like in 2003-04, the government\u2019s order to reduce fees in six IIMs was opposed by the IIMs.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Autonomy Post IIM act 2017<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The act converted <\/span><b>autonomy based on the convention to autonomy derived from legislation.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The government needs to follow the provisions of the act and any alteration to curtail the autonomy can only be done by the legislature.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The act reduced the power of government but <\/span><b>enhanced the powers of the Board of Governors over the institute<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Due to this, a tussle is seen between the board and the director of the institute. (IIM Calcutta Scenario)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Impact of Declining Autonomy:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The creativity of institutes will decrease. It would in turn <\/span><b>reduce the quality <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of education.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This further culminates into<\/span><b> lowered reputation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> thereby impacting the overall higher education framework in India.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Way Forward:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The government should avoid unnecessary intervention. In the case of IIM Ahmedabad issue, a more prudent way is to go through the appropriate academic forums within the Institute to flag complaints.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The government should support higher education institutes in multiple ways (including funding) as is done across the globe. However, the support shouldn\u2019t be converted into intervention.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For instance, funding gives more controlling power to the government. This happens because Parliament and the CAG have the right to know the fate of the funds approved by the government.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Indian Institute of Management has remained the brightest jewel in the country\u2019s higher education set-up. Maintenance of this position would definitely require a significant degree of autonomy.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Indian Express Syllabus: GS 2 &#8211; Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector\/Services relating to Education\u00a0 Synopsis:\u00a0 The recent attempts of intervention in the functioning of IIMs raise concerns with respect to the degree of autonomy enjoyed by them. The powers of government and board of governors to intervene in the institute\u2019s&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/declining-autonomy-of-indian-institute-of-management-iim\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Declining Autonomy of Indian Institute of Management (IIM)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1309],"class_list":["post-93498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public","tag-education_related","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704861176},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}