Mumbai: The University of Mumbai (MU) has allowed the colleges that are unwilling to bring their Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) course under the ambit of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to rename the programme as BCom (Management Studies).
The change in nomenclature was requested by the colleges in a bid to avoid the regulatory control of AICTE, the apex national body for technical courses including engineering, pharmacy and management. The colleges can now either rename their BMS programme or get the AICTE recognition, if they wish to persist with the existing name.
Earlier this year, AICTE categorised BMS as well as Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and Bachelor of Computer Application (BCA) as professional courses, making it mandatory for colleges to get the council’s recognition for running these programmes. While several colleges have already applied for the AICTE recognition, many are apprehensive about it as they believe that following norms for professional courses wouldn’t be feasible or financially viable for them.
While BMS is one of the most-sought after undergraduate programmes at MU-affiliated colleges, there are hardly any institutes in the city offering BBA or BCA courses. According to TA Shiware, Chairman of the Association of Non-Government Colleges (ANGC), around 167 out of more than 460 MU colleges offering BMS programmes have already applied for AICTE recognition, while others will likely go for the change of name. Some of the colleges chose to bring some of their BMS divisions under the AICTE control, while keeping the others outside the regulatory ambit.
"The colleges want to experiment with both AICTE-recognised BMS as well as the BCom (Management Studies) courses. They will come to know which option is better after a while," he said. The council has so far granted recognition to 3,970 institutes across the country to offer BBA, BCA, and BMS.
The admission process for the two courses in the upcoming academic year 2024-25 will also be different. While the students can directly apply to the colleges for the rechristened BCom courses, as has been the practice, the entry to BMS, as well as BBA and BCA, courses will be through a state-level Common Entrance Test, which will be conducted on May 29. As many as 56,790 candidates have registered for the test from across the state
