CHENNAI: The Madras School of Economics (MSE) is set to offer its first undergraduate course this academic year. Online applications with the new BA (honours) in Economics will be open from May 2 to June 10. The move holds significance as the MSE established in 1993 in the State has so far offered only postgraduate and PhD courses.
In 2020, after the State government enacted Madras School of Economics Act, 2020, following which MSE was deemed an ‘Institute of Special Importance’ from April 1, 2021. It then acquired degree-granting authority. “Before that, we had no authority to grant degrees, so we entered into an agreement with the Central University of Tamil Nadu and our students got degrees from the university.
As now we can offer UG courses, in the first phase, we have rolled out a BA in Economics programme,” said MSE director KR Shanmugam. According to officials, the course will have 80 seats and the entrance exam will be conducted on July 2. “We plan to complete admissions by July first week and start classes from the second week of July,” said Shanmugam.
“The status will help us to conduct further research in public finance, provide policy suggestions to the government and run academic courses,” said an official. The institute plans to convert the PGDM programs into MBA programmes soon. It also has plans to start new academic courses in the coming years. MSE was set up in Chennai in 1993 as a charitable society under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975, (Tamil Nadu Act 27 of 1975).