Following is an excerpt from a report in pagalguy.com.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management is starting two MBA programs for working executives at it Kolkata and Bhubhaneswar campuses. Working on a 3-year structure that will allow participants to work while they study, the courses are largely targeted towards the local population of each city they shall function in. While the Executive MBA at the Kolkata campus has a general management bent the Knowledge Industries MBA (KIMBA) at the Bhubhaneswar campus would focus on the IT and ITES sectors, explained EMBA coordinator Prof Gautam Sinha.
The intakes for both the programs would be 15 to 30 students each while the minimum eligibility will be three years of work experience and either an engineering education or post-graduate education in commerce, science or economics. More about the application system to the courses on the VGSoM website.
Prima facie, there are few differences between the EMBA and KIMBA except for a couple of core courses. The IT/ITES focused KIMBA has courses such as Technology Management and Services Management, which in the EMBA are replaced by International Management and IT & Business Applications Laboratory. Interestingly, the KIMBA has two courses on Financial Accounting while the EMBA has none. Both courses cost Rs 6 lakhs in fees, including a one-year international immersion program, which according to Prof Sinha may be carried out with one of IIT Kharagpur’s 99 tie-ups with various international institutions.
While both the courses look similar to 3-year part-time MBA courses in structure and content, Prof Sinha argues that several executive MBA courses across the world follow the part-time model. While that may be true, popular executive MBA programs in the USA or Europe wrap up in an year’s time, recognizing that the opportunity cost for working executives to stay away from work is high. To that extent, VGSOM’s Executive programs seem like 3-year part-time MBAs that give you an Executive MBA degree at the end, thus keeping you away from the stigma attached to the ‘part-time’ bit of part-time MBA.
Prof Sinha defends the three-year pattern of VGSOM’s Executive MBAs saying, “One-year or two-year programs are high pressure situations which might not be conducive for people with families.”
The links for the two programs are:
- E-MBA at Kolkata for all industries
- KI-MBA at Bhubaneswar for knowledge industries like Information Technology sector.
Note that earlier IIT Kharagpur also introduced 3 year weekend and after hours M.Tech programs in both cities. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/4118.
May 12th, 2010
The deadline for the coming year is past. But one can get the details for future years from http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/downloads/mtech_new1.pdf. Following is information from that page.
The following two M. Tech programmes will be offered for faculty members of AICTE-recognized programmes of Engineering Colleges:
1. M. Tech in Electrical Engineering
2. M. Tech in Electronics & Communication Engineering
The programmes will be offered from January 2010.
Programme Features
The features of these programmes and the mode of delivery are elucidated below.
• Each programme will be of three-year duration.
• These programmes will be offered in the holidays and beyond office hours on weekdays to facilitate the teachers employed in the engineering colleges to attend the classes.
• The programme may be offered during summer vacation.
• Since the potential student base for these programmes exist in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, these programmes will be offered in the Extension Centers of the Institute at Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.
• A mixed mode of teaching through video-conferencing and face-to-face interaction will be adopted in these programmes.
• A faculty will deliver a lecture at any of the locations (primarily Kharagpur) and the students at Kolkata and Bhubaneswar will be able to attend the lecture and interact with the faculty through video-conferencing.
• The tutorials, seminars, and comprehensive viva-voce examinations will be conducted also in the above-stated mode, as and when required.
• The recorded lectures, tutorials, and interactions will be recorded in the two Extension Centres and will be stored at the library of each extension center. They will be available to the students for study during specified hours.
• Students cannot copy these recorded lectures.
• The recorded lectures, tutorials, and interactions will not be used in subsequent semesters as a substitute for live presentations.
• Laboratory classes will be conducted in one weekend of every month at IIT Kharagpur campus at Kharagpur.
• Laboratory classes may also be conducted at the respective extension centers in virtual mode, depending on the availability of the required facilities.
• Projects and supervisors will be assigned to the students by the Programme Coordinator after the completion of first two semesters.
• Students will carry out their project work at their institutions and have to be in constant touch with their supervisors. The sponsoring organizations are required to provide laboratory facilities to the students to carry out their M.Tech project works.
• There will be two class tests in every subject. The class tests will be conducted at Kharagpur when the students come to the Institute during the last weekend of a month for the laboratory class.
• Mid-Semester and End-semester examinations will be conducted at the respective Extension Centers with faculty members as invigilators.
• Comprehensive Viva-Voce will be conducted through video-conferencing.
Number of Students to be Admitted
• Twenty-five in each programme at each Extension Center.
Programme Fee
• Fee for each programme is Rs.2 lakh for each student to be paid in two instalments – the first instalment of Rs.1 lakh to be paid at the time of admission and the second instalment of Rs.1 lakh to be paid one year after the admission. The programme fee includes the tuition fee and the examination fee.
Eligibility for Admission :
• Faculty members associated with the AICTE-recognized programmes of engineering colleges are eligible for admission into the programmes.
• An applicant must have passed B. Tech in appropriate branch with a minimum of 60% marks in the final qualifying examinations (for SC/ST candidates it is 55%).
Application Fee
• The Application Fee of Rs. 2,000.00 for general candidates and Rs. 1,000.00 for SC/ST candidates should be payable by Demand Draft drawn in favour of ‘IIT Kharagpur’ on any nationalized bank payable at Kharagpur.
Undertaking from the Sponsoring Institution
The sponsoring engineering college must give an undertaking that the college will upgrade its own facility (such as laboratories, computer facilities, and library) to enable the sponsored student to carry out his/her M. Tech thesis work in that college.
Selection of Candidates
The candidates will be asked to appear at a written test and an interview to be held at each Extension Center.
Some time back we had suggested something similar. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/501. Even with the IIT Kharagpur’s program there is need for more such programs. Perhaps IIIT Bhubaneswar and BPUT can make efforts in this direction.
March 29th, 2010
Following is an excerpt from a report in Hindustan Times.
The government has now allowed leading institutes — both, government-run and private — like the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management to offer their courses through distance learning programmes as well as classroom education.
The University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Distance Education Council (DEC) jointly decided to allow all educational institutions to offer distance education courses.
Institutes that want to set up distance learning programmes will need to get the approval of a joint committee of that the three regulatory bodies decided to set up earlier this month. The committee will help establish a ‘single window’ approach for institutes. “It is a big leap forward for high quality distance education,” said a UGC member.
“The mechanism would be in place in few months so that institutions can start offering online courses from the next academic year,” added another UGC official.
The AICTE has been entrusted with the job of monitoring distance education courses offered by institutions offering technical education whereas UGC will monitor universities, including deemed universities. The DEC will be the overall regulatory body for open education.
According to UGC, the committee will evolve a mechanism to monitor institutions conducting courses in distance learning.
It would identify thrust areas and develop curriculum and learning methods to bring uniformity to distance learning by laying down quality guidelines.
March 26th, 2008
Following is an excerpt from a report by Chetan Chauhan in Hindustan Times on this.
The HRD ministry will soon seek Union Cabinet’s approval to set up a statutory body to recognise and regulate all distance education and all online courses in the country.
The body will also monitor courses being provided by foreign education providers through the Internet. The ministry has prepared a draft law to provide legal backing to the Distance Education Council (DEC), at present a body under Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).
… The proposed law is based on the recommendations of a committee appointed by the ministry last year. The committee had felt that regulation of online and distance education is imperative as in the next five years admissions in online courses will double with increase in internet connectivity.
December 6th, 2007
