Setting a course for 21st century

Date: 20/03/1997

By Helen Morgan

THE virtual business school of the 21st century has not yet arrived. But post-graduate institutes are increasingly moving to interactive and other distance learning techniques.

Distance learning programmes, which allow qualifications to be earned without disrupting a student's working life, are attracting interest from all over the world.

They are, effectively, correspondence courses with the added ingredients of teleconferencing, multimedia, videophones and computer links, as well as video and audio tapes to bring the classroom into the student's home.

The International Centre for Management, Law and Industrial Relations at the University of Leicester has more than 400 postgraduate students who are studying either for a higher degree (MA or LLM) in law and employment relations, or for a similar qualification in European management and employment.

“These higher degree students consist entirely of working professionals in law, management and related professions who are attracted by the accessible nature of these specialised distance learning programmes,” says John Williams, the centre's administrator.

“Typical participants will be experienced lawyers, human resource managers, senior government officials and similarly qualified men and women of high professional standing.”

In the field of Master of Business Administration programmes, Europe is the 'spiritual' home of the industry-led, one-year programme, says George Bickerstaffe, author of Which MBE?

But the trend is towards modular, sandwich and part-time courses which mix learning with on-the-job experience - unlike the American MBA's emphasis on academic theory.

“The growth of part-time degrees is one of the most prominent trends of the MBA scene and the huge growth in the number of MBAs awarded in recent years is largely attributed to the flexibility of distance learning,” says Bickerstaffe.

“Many believe it is an idea whose time has yet to come, particularly as information technology becomes cheaper and easier to use.”

This is echoed by Soma Chakrabarti, European marketing manager of the Open University's Business School in Brussels, who says: “The big advantage is that students can keep studying however much they might move across the EU. All courses are modular and can be taken in any order at the student's own pace.”

Leicester and the Open University are typical in offering intensive weekend workshops, summer schools and local contact groups as well as keeping in touch by e-mail and telephone.

But combining work on a distance learning MBA with the demands of a full-time job and family commitments is far from easy. It is hard work and often students toil silently at home, far removed from the stimulus of others on the same course.

“For this reason, the drop-out rate can be high. Schools are reluctant to quote figures, but around 30&percent; seems about right,” says Bickerstaffe.

But many course organisers are aware of this problem and do all they can to counter any feeling of isolation. The Open University, for example, runs self-help groups to bring students together, as well as local tutorials.

For the majority of Open University students who stay the course, taking the theoretical framework and case studies into the workplace and trying to implement them the next day is highly effective, says Chakrabarti.

“MBA candidates tend to want immediate benefits. They sign up to improve what they are doing at once, whether it is understanding budgets, personnel appraisal or restructuring their marketing while gaining a comprehensive overview of the business world,” she explains.

Chakrabarti's students say that colleagues who have spent a year or more on full-time courses experience problems when they return. While away from the office, their career aspirations change and so does the jobs market.

Whatever their length or style of delivery, most MBA courses have adopted the traditional split between a group of compulsory core subjects and a set of optional courses.

But virtually all include a mandatory company project, reflecting the European preference for a close link with practical business issues, as the globalisation of business continues, language skills are becoming ever more important - not only as a means of communication, but also to help students to appreciate other national cultures and customs.

Management consultancy and financial services have always been the traditional routes to top jobs and high salaries for MBA alumni.

But the indications are that a growing number are turning to smaller organisations for employment.

Start-up and entrepreneurial activity in general offer attractions which larger firms cannot, even though the initial rewards may be lower.

INSEAD in France, for example, claims that within five years of graduation, 70&percent; of its alumni are heading up their own operations.