Friday, October 24, 2008
Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras signed its first academic partnership with a bank on Thursday, tying up with a Standard Chartered unit to launch a course in financial markets for its MBA students.

The 40-hour course is being developed by the IIT-M’s Management Studies department and Scope International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered. Scope’s trainers will fly in from Singapore and the United Kingdom to teach 20 hours of the programme.


“We look forward to sharing our working knowledge of the international markets,” said Edwin Nevis, chief executive of Scope.

The company hoped to expand the partnership to include more courses, including one in derivatives market. Asked about the timing of the course, in the context of the turmoil in the global financial markets, partly caused by an unravelling of the derivatives sector, Mr. Nevis said StanChart was taking a long-term view.

“This is just a hiccup. It shouldn’t keep students away from the field.”

But both IIT-M professor L.S. Ganesh and Scope’s head of software solutions Akshaya Gaur admitted that the financial sector was not a top pick for many students anymore. “Marketing is probably the top choice now, where investment banking was last year,” Professor Ganesh said.