The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has said conducting the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) and the Master of Business Administration (MBA) courses in the same institution is not allowed.

“Conducting PGDM and MBA courses in the same institution is not permissible,” the AICTE said in a circular, released last week.

“AICIE started/initiated PGDM courses to be run by stand alone institutions, which were neither university nor affiliated to any university on the lines similar to IlMs,” the AICTE added.

The move, according to AICTE officials, is aimed at eliminating confusion caused by institutes running Master’s as well as diploma programmes.

“Central/state/private universities and institutions deemed to be universities that are running PGDM programme concurrently with MBA under the banner of management programme are requested to convert PGDM courses as MBA completely and comply with the AICTE norms,” the circular read.

The AICTE is the technical and management education regulator under the Union Human Resource Development Ministry.