THE GLOBAL CERTIFICATION EDGE

INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE FOR COLLEGES, BETTER CAREER CHOICES FOR STUDENTS. ACCREDITATION GIVES BOTH THE EXTRA EDGE.

- GINA KRISHNAN

ALMOST TWO DECADES AGO, Debashish Sanyal, the then dean of Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon, decided to take the institute through the international accreditation process of the Association of MBAs, or AMBA, as it is popularly known.

The accreditation put MDI on par with similar institutes around the world. For Sanyal, too, it was life changing. He moved across different private institutes, taking five of them through the accreditation process. After MDI Gurgaon in 2002, SP Jain Global and SP Jain India received international accreditation in 2009, followed by Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) Bangalore, and Hyderabad, respectively. Sanyal is currently director, Great Lakes Gurgaon, which received AMBA accreditation in 2019. It is now aspiring to get its second accreditation by AACSB by 2024.

The Triple Crown But the ultimate in global B-school recognition is Triple Accreditation, or Triple Crown. It implies the school has received accreditation from AMBA (based in the U.K.), Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International, or AACSB (based in the U.S.) and EQUIS (based in the European Union). Internationally, only around 1% of business schools are triple-accredited. India has three — Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad, IIM Calcutta and IIM Indore.

While receiving accreditation from one or two of the governing organisations is prestigious, a Triple Crown is highly regarded among business schools because of the rigorous standards an institution needs to adhere to. One of the key objectives of accreditation is to promote entrepreneurship through various programmes. It is also an important factor in business school rankings.