Recently, when AICTE asked the Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business to furnish details of its MBA programme to see if it fits the category of ‘technical education’, it was the latest in a series of skirmishes that the regulator of technical education has had with institutes on the issue.
So do MBA and such diploma courses constitute technical education or not? Probably not, if one goes by the prevailing legal opinion.
National Law School, Bangalore, assistant professor Rahul Singh does not believe so. “The term technology includes applied science and under legislation, MBA is not an applied science,” he said. Many companies that have borne the brunt of spurious management consulting advice might agree with this view, and so would a few members of the profession of economics, arguably the latest discipline to be considered a science.
AICTE itself has more faith in the nature of knowledge that MBA institutes impart. According to AICTE, “Any institution offering technical education programmes in engineering & technology, management, computer applications, architecture & town planning, pharmacy, hotel management & catering technology, applied arts and craft, in India with or without foreign university collaboration needs (its) approval”.
