June 10, 2007

GSB makes the grade

In another first for Africa, the UCT Graduate School of Business has been admitted to the International University Consortium for Executive Education (UNICON), a prestigious network of the top business schools around the world.

The only African business school to make it into this elite group, UCT GSB joins the likes of Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg and Stanford business schools and other top-ranked schools.

According to Elaine Rumboll, Director of Executive Education at the GSB, the move opens up exciting new opportunities not only for the UCT GSB but also for other business schools in Africa at a critical time in Africa’s history.

“With the second phase of globalisation widely predicted to happen in Africa, we need to make sure we are well-placed to capitalise on this,” said Rumboll.

“As a member of this exclusive ‘club’ of top business schools we now have unprecedented access to current thinking that will help to ensure our courses remains globally relevant. The move also opens up the possibility of collaboration with top business schools across four continents in the development and delivery of business programmes that are geared towards helping international business take advantage of the second phase of globalisation.”

Rumboll said that already the GSB was noticing and increase in the number of international companies interested in working with African business schools in the design and delivery of custom-made programmes that are globally focused.

“We expect that getting the nod from UNICON will signal that the UCT GSB is a serious contender when it comes to these kind of processes. We expect that our membership will open a new point for the African content to engage with international businesses,” she said.
In a further endorsement, UNICON has also identified the UCT GSB as one of six leading business school innovators. Along with IMD in Switzerland, Ashridge in the UK, the BI Norwegian School of Management in Norway, the University of Notre dame, Mendoza College of Business in the US and UNC Kenan Flagler in the US, the School has been chosen to be one of the six case studies for Innovation in Executive Education. A UNICON team will visit the GSB in August to write up a case study to be disseminated globally of the learning methodology entitled “Alchemical Learning” which the School is developing.

Rumboll said that this is further kudos for the business school and for South Africa.

“Too often South African institutions downplay their achievements and believe that they cannot possibly be global leaders and innovators. But in fact we are ahead in many areas and Executive Education is one of them,” she said.

To be eligible for membership of UNICON, business schools must have a commitment to quality executive education and development and must be able to prove that it is already a serious contender in the executive education market as measured by its size, number of corporate clients, percentage of repeat business and support services provided to students. Pedagogical processes, the quality of faculty and previous achievements are also taken into consideration.

In 2006, the UCT GSB Executive Education Unit became the first in Africa to be ranked in the top 10 by the Economist Intelligence Unit and received and award for excellence for its customised programmes.