Academicians feel that enrolling more international students will strengthen Indian B-schools’ global rankings since they value internationalisation, international faculty, students, and global impression.
Indian colleges have long struggled to attract international students because the nation does not rank among the top study destinations in the world.
To address this, some Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have added supernumerary seats in various programmes.
IIM Kozhikode recently revealed 50 extra seats for overseas students in three full-time MBA courses: These are as follows:
- Postgraduate Programme (PGP) MBA (20 seats)
- Postgraduate Programme (PGP) in Finance (20 seats)
- Postgraduate Programme (PGP) in Liberal Studies and Management (20 seats) (10 seats).
Shubhasis Dey, Dean (Programmes and International Relations), IIM-K, says that their classrooms have become increasingly gender diversified in recent years, with students from numerous academic backgrounds.
To increase cultural diversity, they are increasingly focusing on international nationals.Students from many walks of life enrol in the institute, from rural Bihar to significant cities.
However, most of the world’s current and future challenges are global, necessitating global thinking to find solutions.
They’ve also partnered with the Study in India programme and redesigned their entire admissions process.
Enrolment requirements in top institutions
Students desiring to enrol in these programmes at IIM-K will not be required to pass the CAT exam. Candidates must have a graduate degree or similar in any area, as well as valid CAT/GRE/GMAT and TOEFL grades.
Dey feels that these students will bring the institute a variety of partnerships and collaborative opportunities. On September 15, the initial wave of admissions ended, and only about ten international candidates registered for the supernumerary seats.
It will take a few years for the situation to alter because the way is uphill. IIM Ahmedabad was one of the first universities to offer extra seats in two-year MBA programmes.
The supernumerary allocation is 10% connected to the batch size, the institute’s Chairperson (Admissions) stated. When the batch size gets increased, the seats in the supernumerary allotment gets immediately increased.
For enrolling foreign national students in the MBA programme, the supernumerary quota got established. Admission gets accomplished through a variety of application processes.
IIM Indore also provides a supernumerary quota for the five-year integrated programme in management (IPM). Only five seats in the specific category are available out of 150, and other courses have yet to add such a category.
The director of IIM Indore, Himanshu Rai, says the idea of having more international students on campus is essential. But they must be cautious about which programmes they will be able to participate in.
IIM’s plan to enrol international students
The objective is to give value to the classes. Thus institutes must evaluate applicants as much as possible and be cautious of their origin countries. Indians with foreign passports are the most common applicants.
The Recruiting is the term used in international business schools to describe the process of admitting international students.
Their institute is also formulating a student recruitment plan from overseas nations, with SAARC countries being their primary emphasis.
Rai says that a lack of international students influences Indian B-schools’ world rankings since they highly value characteristics such as internationalisation, overseas faculty, students, and global reputation.
On the other side, academics are concerned about diminishing the complexity level of the admission procedure to open doors for “everyone and anyone.
Mahadeo Jaiswal, the director of IIM Sambalpur, feels that supernumerary seats are a technique of lowering student quality in the name of cultural variety.
According to Jaiswal, Students opt to study in the United States or Europe because colleges in these locations attract students worldwide.
When such measures get implemented, students are naturally placed on a lesser pedestal, reflecting their entire MBA experience.
The MBA admissions procedure should not get changed and be uniform.
He says that unique admission standards for PhD and executive programmes might get introduced and that the focus should be on attracting foreign faculty, with students following suit.
The institute has no such provisions for admitting international students via supernumerary seats soon.