COIMBATORE: With a few business schools offering dual degree programmes with multiple exit options where the nomenclature of the courses is not in line with UGC-approved programmes, the All India Council for Technical Education has decided not to discontinue the courses from this academic year.
Instead, the apex regulatory body has decided to offer five-year integrated MBA programmes.
The AICTE had introduced a dual-degree programme in management wherein students will have multiple exit options in the 2012-13 academic year.
Those who complete three years of study will get BM, BAM degrees in the fourth year and MAM degrees after completing five years. However, as these nomenclatures are not in line with the UGC programmes, the courses were scrapped.
The dual-degree courses have been closed and no fresh admission should be permitted form the 2016-17 academic year onwards, said a May 19 AICTE circular to universities. An AICTE official told Express that the institutions currently running the dual-degree courses are instead given approval to offer five-year integrated MBA courses.
To safeguard the interests of students who joined the programme from the 2011-12 academic year to the 2015-16 academic year, the AICTE has decided to extend the limited exit option in line with UGC regulation. Those who joined the programmes will be allowed the exit option at the end of third year and awarded BBA instead of the BM degree.
Those who have completed four years will be asked to continue for one more year, after which they will be awarded BBA and MBA. The AICTE has also requested universities to adopt these changes. “We welcome the move. The degree awarded after three years are not mentioned in UGC list of approved programmes. Students who receive such degrees find it impossible to get government jobs,” said K P Kishan, chairperson (admissions), GITAM Institute of Management, Visakhapatnam.