Diploma students seeking admission in the current session are likely to have the option to continue the two-year post-graduate courses from next year. Interviews for the one-year courses will begin on Monday.
The road map for converting the prestigious institution into a university offering research facilities was unveiled before Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni on Friday.
The IIMC will offer two new two-year post-graduate diploma courses in development journalism, and corporate communication and media management.
The course material for turning the existing one-year diploma courses such as English journalism, advertising and electronic journalism into a two- year course has also been prepared.
To make the two-year advanced post-graduate diploma courses equivalent to an MA degree, the information and broadcasting ministry wrote to the HRD ministry.
The system will work on the lines of similar courses offered by the Indian Institutes of Management.
This will enable students to go into research while filling the gap of getting trained manpower in academics, teaching and the media industry.
Four new regional centres are also coming up in J&K, Mizoram, Maharashtra and Kerala. IIMC also has a centre at Dhenkanal in Orissa.
This would mean that the current combined student strength of 372 at Delhi and Dhenkanal would go up to 935 in the next few years with the addition of 200 students at the four new centres.
Soni asked the officials to not repeat the same courses in all IIMC branches. "For example, proposed IIMC Mizoram can have a course on animation, instead of repeating courses offered in Delhi," she said.
Adding graduate courses would cost the IIMC over Rs 45 crore. The minister asked officials to go liberal with funding to bring the institutions on a par with world class universities.