South Africa MBA Re-accreditation

The Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) of the Council on Higher Education in South Africa has released the results of their MBA re-accreditation project. The results can be found at:

http://www.che.ac.za/news/special_issue2004_mba/index.php

The list of schools is posted at:

http://www.che.ac.za/news/special_issue2004_mba/page7.php?item=G

I'm sure that the results surprised a lot of people both inside South Africa and internationally. Most notably, only six of the top South African MBA programs achieved full accreditation:

Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria
Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand
Graduate School of Business, University of Stellenbosch
Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Graduate School of Leadership, UNISA
Graduate School of Management, University of Pretoria

Twelve business schools achieved conditional accreditation, including Potchefstroom Business School, University of the Free State, the Management College of Southern Africa and Damelin International College (ones with DL programs). These schools must address their shortcomings within the next 6 months to achieve full accreditation.

Ten schools lost their accreditation, including the University of Natal (ranked in the top ten of the 2003 Financial Mail MBA survey) and three technikons. Several foreign-based business schools also lost their accreditation, leaving Henley SA as the only foreign-based MBA program that may achieve full accreditation.

Conclusion: these results indicate that South Africa is serious about improving the quality of its MBA programs. However, a number of issues come to mind:

1. For students in programs that lost their accreditation, some of them may be able to complete their programs and still earn accredited qualifications, but the value of these qualifications has been diminished in the marketplace.

2. With a reduced number of MBA programs, it will become harder for prospective students to get into a South African MBA program. As a result, these students may be tempted to go to a foreign school.

3. A reduced number of MBA programs also means fewer MBA graduates, which does not address the urgent need for qualified managers in the post-apartheid South African economy.

Hopefully, all of the conditionally accredited MBA programs achieve full accreditation and that other institutions attempt to create accredited MBA programs after the two year waiting period has elapsed.

Regardless, the HEQC and the CHE must be commended for a rigorous approach to MBA accreditation, which will result in world-class MBA programs from South Africa.

Thanks for reading,

Michael Weedon

 

I wasn't much surprised since there were hints that many schools were going to fail in the re-accreditation exercise.

Incidentally, the University of Natal business school sounds venerable but in fact Natal jumped on this gravy train only recently.

 

As I did not see any discussions leading up to the re-accreditation report, what sort of hints were out there about schools losing their accreditation or only being conditionally accredited?

From looking at the CHE & HEQC web sites as well as web sites for South African media, I got the impression that the re-accreditation discussions weren't in the public domain.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see which conditionally accredited schools will achieve full accreditation. As well, I wonder if Natal or other institutions will try again in 2 years. As a result of the Natal-Durban Westville merger, it looks like the original Natal MBA programs are shelved for the short term.

Regards,

Michael Weedon