Ahmedabad, Oct. 25: IIM Ahmedabad has crossed the first barrier towards becoming an international business school with the first batch of its residential executive management programme enrolling about 40 per cent overseas students.

Of the 67 students joining the one-year Post Graduate Programme in Management for Executives in April 2006, 26 are from abroad.

Barring one student from Malaysia, the other overseas executives are from the US and the UK. Many of them also plan to work in India, said Prof. Raghuram, who headed the committee that designed the curriculum for middle- and senior-level executives with international exposure and work experience.

Designed by IIMA professors with the help of corporate leaders, the programme has received such an overwhelming response that the institute has started planning for the second year. “There will be 25 per cent fee hike (from Rs 8 lakh to Rs 10 lakh) for the second batch and the number of students will double,” he said.

IIMA director Bakul Dholakia said on an average, the students would be 32-year-old executives with a work experience of over nine years and a GMAT score of 700.

Having cleared GMAT, he pointed out, these students could have joined any reputed B-school abroad, but they chose India. “Students coming from abroad to study in India is the beginning of the process of reversal,” Dholakia said.

Faculty members went to New York, London and Dubai to interview overseas applicants and conducted road shows to attract an exciting mix of international and Indian participants.

Raghuram said interaction with the overseas students would also benefit the faculty.