Bhubaneswar, Aug. 29: Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), is planning to introduce a master’s programme in public health with a specialisation in mental health from next year.
The course will be conducted in association with the Union ministry of health and family welfare, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Tiss) in Mumbai and the London School of Medicine.
The proposal to introduce this two-year master’s programme was initiated by the director of Tiss, S. Parsuraman, while attending an event at the premier business school last week.
“We are still working out the details of the programme. There will be a meeting of all the partners this November and we hope that things will be finalised soon,” said Father P.T. Joseph, director of XIMB.
He added it would be a residential programme and around 25 to 30 students would be enrolled in the first batch. Tiss, Mumbai will confer the degrees. Speaking about the importance of the course, Joseph said: “Public health and mental health are areas of great concern worldwide.
“Not many institutes in the country offer these kinds of courses. I am hopeful that the response will be very good.”
Earlier, XIMB had entered into a partnership with two foreign B-schools — Antwerp Management School in Antwerp and Fordham Graduate School of Business in New York — to launch a “3-Continent Master of Global Management” (3C MGM) programme. The duration of the course is 12 months and it is scheduled to begin on September 1.
For this, 20 candidates each have been chosen from the continents of Asia (India and China), Europe and America. The students will spend four months at Antwerp B-school, XIMB and Fordham.
Of the 40 applicants who had applied for the course, which will cost around 39,750 Euros or Rs 30 lakhs, only one has been selected to be part of the group from India.
“The applicants found it difficult to secure bank loans since XIMB is neither a university nor recognised under the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE). We are trying our best to attain the status of a university so that these problems do not recur,” said Joseph, who is also one of the deans for the 3C MGM programme.
