Indore: IIMI yet to shed dilemma over whether to confer degree or diploma

Indore: Upon successful completion of their courses, students of Indian Institute of Management Indore (IIMI) are all set to leave the institute campus but they, as of now, have no clue about the type of recognition they will be conferred on at the convocation ceremony scheduled on March 28.

With merely a week in hand before the grand ceremony, the institute is still undecided on whether to award degrees or diplomas to the 2018 batch students despite having the authority to issue degrees. The uncertainty has put nearly 640 students of PGP and IPM, who have successfully completed their courses, into a state of utter confusion.

“We are told by the institute authorities that it could be anything– a degree or a diploma,” a student of IIM Indore told Free Press pleading anonymity. The Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017, which was passed on December 20, 2017 and came into effect from January 31, 2018, empowers IIMs to issue degrees. But the IIMs are divided on the issue of awarding degrees instead of diplomas to the outgoing students this year.

In a meeting held last week, most of the IIM directors favoured the idea of maintaining status quo for the current year and awarding degrees from 2019. But some others B-schools including IIM Bangalore and IIM Udaipur pressed for granting degrees from this year itself. In fact, IIMB awarded degrees to its students in a convocation ceremony held lately while IIM Lucknow and IIM Ranchi handed over diplomas to their students. However, IIMI is still to take a final call on the issue.

“We are studying the issues related to the grant of degrees and will take final decision in consultation with board of governors,” said media in charge of IIMI, Ananya Mishra.

President and whole-time director of InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo Airlines), Aditya Ghosh will be the chief guest of the 19th annual convocation ceremony of Indian Institute of Management Indore to be held on March 28. The pre-convocation ceremony would take place on March 27 which will witness a musical performance by ‘Ragas Redefine’ among other activities.

Guests of honour for the pre-convocation will be CEO of Reliance Jio Messaging Services (also PGP alumnus of batch 1998-2000) Rahul Razdan and chief marketing officer of Raymond (also the PGP alumnus of batch 2003-2005), Shantiswarup Panda.