TAPMI in News

Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is the oldest and toughest accreditation organisation in the world. Headquartered at Tampa, Florida, US, the organisation has been in existence since 1916. Initially an essentially American accreditation organisation, AACSB expanded its operations during late 20th century to both enable the spread of the best practices of management education globally and to facilitate global tie ups among business schools. (Please visit www.aacsb.edu).

The accreditation process involves putting in place an appropriate mission, processes that reflect the school’s commitment to its stated mission, documentation as evidence for those processes, consistent and high quality intellectual contribution and internalisation of the quality processes and commitment to the same among all the stake holders of the school. AACSB facilitates the school that seeks accreditation by nominating a mentor, with whose help the school puts all these pieces together that brings out a clear picture of high quality outcome based management education.

The Association deputes a team of peers, who are Deans of reputed Business Schools in the West, highly knowledgeable in management education and research, thoroughly conversant in the quality processes and are highly respected in academic circles. This team visits the campus and reviews the school’s quality processes by triangulation methods of talking to various stakeholders to check the internalisation of and commitment to quality process. The team identifies areas of improvement, suggests ways of achieving them and provides a time frame within which they have to be completed. Subsequently, the final review team assesses the school’s progress and recommends to the AACSB for accreditation. The final decision rests with the initial Accreditation Committee and the Board of Directors of the AACSB.

AACSB-accredited schools have the highest quality faculty, relevant and challenging curriculum, and provide educational and career opportunities that are not found at other business schools. AACSB Accreditation represents the highest standard of achievement for business schools worldwide. Less than 5% of the world’s 13,000 business programs have earned AACSB Accreditation. AACSB-accredited schools produce graduates that are highly skilled and more desirable to employers than other non-accredited schools.

World over, only about 5% of the business schools pass the muster in acquiring AACSB’s accreditation. As in April 2012, there are close to 50 business schools in India that have sought AACSB’s membership or accreditation. Only two have succeeded so far in getting accredited, TAPMI being one of them.