Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Kutlwano Ramaboa: Africa’s business schools need to be locally relevant and globally wise

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If 99.6% of businesses in a country like Nigeria employ fewer than 10
workers, does it make sense to teach Nigerian business students how to
manage Fortune 500 companies in the US using Harvard Business School case
studies? This question, raised by the African Management Initiative in a
recent report, sums up the complex nature of the challenge facing African
business schools when picking a path between global recognition and local
relevance.

There is no doubt that business schools need to demonstrate international
relevance, whether through the programmes they offer, or the content they
teach. This allows them to attract international students and faculty. And,
perhaps more importantly, it offers students a chance to experience
international contexts. International mobility in today’s global business
world is a key requirement.

At the same time, schools need to cater to the day-to-day realities in
their own context. African business schools operate in environments
characterised by high degrees of inequality and uncertainty, a lack of
skills and high rates of unemployment.

Ideally, they need to do both these things if they want to deliver the best
possible training for the continent’s requirements.


An assessment of quality


One important way that business schools seek to demonstrate international
relevance is through rankings and accreditations. These offer an important
marketing and reputational window to the world. And they are widely used by
global schools as stamps of quality. They are also one of the major tools
employed by students in choosing where to study.

But only a handful of schools in Africa are recognised and ranked globally.
The University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, University of
Stellenbosch Business School and the American University in Cairo are the
only African business schools out of 86 globally that are triple-crown
accredited. This means they have recognition from the top-three global
accreditation bodies, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of
Business, the Association of MBAs, and the European Foundation for
Management Development’s Quality Improvement System.

When it comes to rankings, only the University of Cape Town Graduate School
of Business, University of Stellenbosch Business School and the Gordon
Institute of Business Science University of Pretoria are recognised in the
various Financial Times rankings for their offerings.


Useful benchmark or distraction from purpose?


The process of business school accreditation is rigorous and
time-consuming. Schools must articulate their vision and mission and
relevance and impact.

Schools have to submit a lot of information and an accreditation panel will
spend time at a school to inspect and ensure that it is delivering what it
claims to be delivering. This process can be useful because it helps schools
identify and improve on weaknesses identified.

Accreditation bodies offer a rounded assessment of schools. The three main
global assessment bodies assess performance in a holistic way. Their
assessment goes beyond just individual increases in salary. They take into
account graduates’ contribution to society, value creation and
entrepreneurship.

There is a new kid on the block worth watching: the Association of African
Business Schools which hopes to delve deeper into what African business
schools are doing to develop the continent.

Undergoing accreditation can therefore be a highly developmental process.
It can be useful as a consultancy exercise as much as – if not more than –
an audit of quality standards. But the reality is that many African business
schools operate with minimal resources making it challenging for them to
achieve accreditation.

Rankings, by comparison, are easier to participate in but have received a
lot of criticism including charges that they come with flawed methodologies,
misleading information and a lack of transparency. They are also accused of
detracting from the social obligations of schools. That’s because they tend
to place little emphasis on students’ learning or societal benefits and
focus almost exclusively on the short-term economic returns of their
education for graduates. The rankings, however, are a criterion used by
potential international students when choosing which schools to apply to.
They cannot be discounted.

Together, accreditation and rankings offer African business schools a
valuable way to benchmark themselves against their global peers. As
professor Jonathan Jansen, former vice chancellor at the University of the
Free State, wrote in a recent article, they can reveal areas in which a
university can grow and improve on its scholarly work:

You never really know how good you are until you are ranked against the
best.

Rankings and accreditation may be onerous and expensive, but if used wisely
they can strengthen global credentials. At the same time they can also help
business schools to hone their offerings to develop the right calibre of
leadership and management to drive the development that is needed on the
continent.

Dr Kutlwano Ramaboa is international relations director at the UCT Graduate
School of Business and a senior lecturer in Research Methodology and
Quantitative Methods. This article was originally published on The
Conversation.—Howwemadeitinafrica 



Kutlwano Ramaboa

 

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