IIM Autonomy — Method in Madness
The recent controversy involving the IIMs needs to be tackled, not with diplomacy but through entrepreneurial innovation. Prof Mani Sundaram showed the way at the Bharathidasan Institute of Management 3 decades ago.
Read the article on Firstpost
The legendary vision and entrepreneurial administration of Prof Mani Sundaram, founder Principal of REC Trichy (now National Institute of Technology) and first Vice Chancellor of the Bharathidasan University is evidenced by the following excerpt from my book The First Principal.
(The Book was released by the Governor of Tamilnadu, Sh K Rosaiah and its first copy was presented to the first citizen of India, President Pranab Mukherjee at the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of National Institute of Technology, Trichy on July 19, last year)
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Always a champion for autonomy, Princi never asked for permission from his superiors anyway, he was the first to give autonomy to university departments, perhaps even before the UGC started doing so. From the Kayakalp article―
The first Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. P. S. Manisundaram, believed that the experiment would succeed only if the new school had a great degree of functional autonomy. He is credited with the idea of having the school as an independent unit within the university structure. Thus, the Bharathidasan Institute of Management was established as a registered Society. Prof. Manisundaram was so conscious of the need for BIM to be autonomous that he did not agree to be anything more than a special invitee to the meetings of the Governing Body. (In 1986, when the second Governing Body was constituted, the Vice-Chancellor of the University was made the Vice-President of the Governing Body.) Though this innovative structuring meant that BIM would operate as a fairly autonomous unit, the University did have the responsibility of meeting the recurring salary costs of the teaching and non-teaching staff.
In another move that reinforced autonomy, the University agreed to a separate Board of Studies for BIM, which would be independent of the Board of Studies in Management set up for management courses offered directly by the Bharathidasan University or its affiliated colleges. The implication of this move was that BIM had a great deal of flexibility in curriculum matters.
A third way in which autonomy was reinforced was through the freedom given to BIM’s Governing Body to determine its own fee structure, provided that the statutory reservation requirements that all state-supported universities had to adhere to, were followed. This policy has enabled BIM to charge tuition fees in line with the maximum course fees stipulated by the All India Council for Technical Education.
Finally, BIM was allowed to operate its own admission tests and systems, subject to adherence to statutory reservation policies. The initial directions set by the first Governing Body with regard to insulating the admission procedures from any external influence, and following transparent admission policies, were important institution-building efforts that have contributed significantly to the maintenance of institutional credibility.
Another aspect of the collaboration with BHEL — which may have the disadvantages of a ‘promoters’ quota’ — is the explicit understanding reached between BHEL and BIM in 1984 to admit every year five children of BHEL employees, who meet the eligibility criteria.
What is most striking about the governance model Mani Sundaram designed for BIM is that it was envisaged and implemented swiftly way back in the early nineteen-eighties. Despite being a single institute under a brand new University, in some ways it suggests a way forward to what the already established IIMs are now trying to achieve. When you study the governance structure of the IIMs you notice the multiple points of view and the constant tussle between the Governing Board’s desire for excellence, faculty’s need for independence, and the value student/alumni attach to brand equity. Success is measured via higher placement numbers as well as higher compensations that fetch each institute a higher ranking in globally recognised league tables. This is not to claim that IIMs are either trying to ape or adopt the BIM model but a laudable illustration of the visionary―almost clairvoyant―dimension of Mani Sundaram and his powers of intuition.
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The above is an edited excerpt from Chapter 6 - Cowardice of Conformity, The First Principal
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