The turf war between business schools and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has taken a new turn with the B-schools categorically stating that they are not willing to negotiate with the government on the issues of admission, fee and curriculum of the post graduate diploma in management (PGDM) programmes.

“Our non negotiables are related to the three issues of admissions, fee and curriculum. The AICTE's regulation to conduct admissions through state common entrance tests (CET) are not acceptable because most institutes accept Common Admission Test (CAT) and Management Aptitude Test (MAT) scores except a few like Mudra Institute of Communication but these are also globally appreciated,” said H Chaturvedi, alternate president, Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI) and director of Birla Institute of Management Technology (Bimtech).

The EPSI has more than 250 management schools as its members.

“We want a central admissions authority to look after admissions in these courses while the state fee committees should be responsible for issues related to fees as is done for every other discipline be it engineering, pharmacy or architecture,” Prof SS Mantha, acting chairman, AICTE, had earlier said..

On the fee front, the government has asked the institutes not to resort to profiteering to which the latter have responded by saying that those schools which are doing so, should be regulated. On the third issue of curriculum, the council has stipulated norms to give the model curriculum to the B-schools.

“We can't allow the AICTE to decide the curriculum as we update it from time to time in line with the needs of the industry. The AICTE has always been an engineering-centric organisation and it doesn't have the expertise in this. Moreover, the AICTE’s notification clearly violates landmark judgments of the Supreme Court in TMA. Pai and PA Inamdar cases which defined the autonomy of self-finance PGDM Institutions,” added Chaturvedi.

Meanwhile, the AICTE through the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) has sent notices to the institutes in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh informing them to hold common entrance tests (CET) by the end of February to kickstart the admission process in B schools.

However, the guidelines for doing so have not been stated in the notification. “The admission process of PGDM courses will be notified before start of the Admission Process,” says the notification published by the Maharashtra DTE.