India’s oldest B-school XLRI Jamshedpur (established in 1949) started its third full-time two-year post graduate diploma programme at a function on its Delhi NCR campus on Friday.
Co-founder Mamaearth, Varun Alagh inaugurated the Post Graduate Diploma in Management in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Venture (IEV) creation in the presence of director XLRI Jamshedpur, Fr Paul Fernandes and director XLRI Delhi-NCR Fr George Sebastian.
“This is a momentous occasion for XLRI as it is the third time in the history of the oldest B-School in India and Asia, that a full time 2-year PGDM programme has been launched. The HR programme was launched 1954 and the Business Management (BM) programme was launched in 1968, both happened over 50 years back. This is an important step towards XLRI’s move towards a more contemporary approach to business education,” said a release issued by the B-school ranked eighth in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) recently.
Speaking about the programme, Varun Alagh said, “This MBA gives an unprecedented opportunity for startup founders to take a measured step towards their own business."
“This programme is meticulously designed to maximize experiential learning for aspiring entrepreneurs”. This just might be the beginning of the next big thing in entrepreneurship and in business education,” said Fr Paul Fernandes.
The first batch has a size of 43 and is among the largest in terms of B-schools offering similar courses in India.
Students with a passion for entrepreneurship would have to qualify through Xavier Aptitude Test for taking part in the programme.
Varun Alagh speaks at the launching ceremony
“The importance of entrepreneurship in an economy has been realized by all countries and the entrepreneurial eco-system has been growing by leaps and bounds the past few years. The educational institutions have also been important contributors by setting up incubators in several campuses including IITs and IIMs. One missing piece in this puzzle has been an effective educational programme in entrepreneurship. While the IEV programme has been offered by several other institutes, this is the first time it has been offered by such a highly ranked institution (ranked eighth in NIRF ranking among management schools),” said a spokesperson of the institution.
It is a full time AICTE approved course in entrepreneurship which offers structured long-term support for aspiring entrepreneurs by combining management education with incubation/acceleration. It approaches management education from the viewpoint of startups and is designed to deliver learning which is relevant and useful to entrepreneurs. As a result of this progressive and integrative approach, an aspiring entrepreneur/student doesn’t have to choose between an MBA and starting their own venture.