Trecherous Trip Pursuing a Doctorate in Business Administration

I have been pursuing a doctorate in business administration offshore with an Australian university that franchises its programs to developing countries. It has been four years and I have had over five supervisors all recruited from the developing country and now have none. The franchisee is now in the process of going bust and the coordinator in charge of the program may be in the process of resigning after a supposedly farewell party. What grates me most is that to an Australian university almost 13000 AUD may not seem alot but to a developing country that is 10 months salary. It is sad to see what an institution from the developed world can do to aspiring students from developing ones. Take their money and drop them in a swirling ocean.

The developing country is fraught with institutional and cultural discrimation whereby doctorates are hard to come by without being the right color. With this setback, it is a double whammy to have an Australian institution exploit the already dire situation of a poor economy. The developing country does not allow many of its own universities conduct PhD programs and there is a shortage of good supervisors that can conduct a DBA. As a result dubious candidates with dubious PhDs are chosen to supervise students. Even non-doctoral supervisors are found to supervise students. Is this injustice in the academic world you tell me but it is certainly a case where a franchiser (Australian university) and its franchisee (developing country) are playing ping pong with the DBA student. The impending break up of the program and the move by the franchisee to provide other programs by American university spells a no way out for the existing DBA students. It is sad that education has sunk so low and has set a poor example to those who aspire to greater heights.

It is sad to see developed country universities take the monies of developing country students without giving a thought to corporate governance and ethics, issues that they preach in their syllabi and not practise it in their implementation of course. I am very disappointed by this so called Australian university and I hope they do take action and propose some form of damage control. I am prepared for the worst and would therefore see my completion of my dissertation as an exercise in writing and nothing more!

 

This is an example of the worst vestiges of irresponsible behaviour by an academic institution. The Australian University is unnamed (why?) and the 'franchisee' is unnamed (why?) and the country unnamed (why?).

Reputable quality assurance regimes condemn franchise arrangements and in doctoral work they are positively lethal. The splurge in DBA programmes contains more than few DBA programmes and the willingness of candidates to part with quite considerable sums is worrying and the willingess of other candidates to ignore the tell tale signs of el cheapo programmes is also worrying.

None of this helps you in retrospect but it is warning to all doctoral candidates. The Australian university concerned must be in breach of its charter in allowing this to happen and in not providing the appropriate 'teach-out' procedure to ensure that all candidates taken in by the DBS programme it borders on outright criminality.

Raise the issue with the Australian Education department that covers the university concerned; badger them incessantly. Write to local newspapers and MPs with your case against them. Name and shame them at every opportunity. If your case is sound someone will pick it up.

Best wishes

 

Australian university

I have not named the Australian university because they are investigating their own operations and I am awaiting an answer from them to rectify this deplorable condition. The franchisee is owned by a politically minded and named person in the developing country. These persons often run corporations to educational establishments and often both and don't know the difference between the two. They buy their titles to get favors, that is how things get done in my country. Both person and country is unnamed because I live in a repressive regime whereby freedom of speech is not admired and further more suppressed. Very often the country suffers a brain drain rather than a brain gain. I have approached the relevant Australian departments of education but have yet to hear an explanation about the way things are running. Infact, the latest issue of Times Higher Education Supplement of the UK reported the falling numbers of foreign students to Australia, now one wonders why?? I have not named names for fear of retribution and victimisation. It is how developed country institutions have exploited this need by individuals from developing countries for higher education and see the desparation.

I have been in education for eight years of my working life I see Western universities flaunt their reputations here and create dreams in the eyes of my fellow men and women. Dreams to be educated and to be civilised. It would take some time for developing countries educational establishments to catch up with the West. Japan did and so will alot of other non-Western establishments. Many of my fellow men and women have gone to places in the West only to be faced with tremendous obstacles of not only coping with the language, culture and climate but also some degree of prejudice. Some come home with nothing but are too embaressed to say why.

What is even more worrying is that the lower rung universities in the West are promoting themselves to be the best from the West and confusing people here with league tables that are skewed towards their favor. It is clear that Western countries depend on foreign students for their revenue, but when they set up franchises in the developing world there is rarely transfer of expertise and infact alot of it is homegrown. I call it a rubber stamping industry - a foreign license on home grown soil. The unfavorable currency exchange whereby our rates are lower than the West makes going to the West or studying for one in the developing country expensive but still there are those that stick to the premise that West is Best. It is a free world - a paradox and contradiction.

The Australian university needs revenue and that is faced by most of the Western universities worldwide. However, do the students learn anything, that is the real question and no study has been done about the transfer of expertise in a strategic alliance between a Western university and a local franchisee. All I can say is with my experience it is about money, money and more money.

 

My apologies for assuming that the freedoms to right wrongs that are prevalent in the UK and which me and my compatriots take for granted are the norm elsewhere. I fully appreciate the problem for you of a repressive regime and acknowledge the brave stance you have taken even in the limited cry for help you have demonstrated.

Send me a private message and I will take up the matter directly with the institution concerned as one commonwealth academic to another. We are not repressed and I will not be intimidated.

EBS was chosen by the Commonwealth to offer its MBA to other Commonwealth countries. I regard your treatment as totally unacceptable as you report it and I will follow through to find out the facts. At my age and long service I am not inclined to accept such behaviour and 'look the other way.'

'Universities' that need the 'money' as you allege are on the boundary of ceasing to be universities in my view. There is no excuse for exploiting in this manner. True, we can be let down by unscrupulous local providers, as we have been occasionally in my institution (a case in Bagladesh springs to mind) but we saw every single student concerned through to completion of their MBAs at no cost to themselves, who had paid the rogue running the scheme who ran off with their money. It cost us tens of thousands of pounds (over GBP100,000) but this was nothing against protecting our reputation for fair dealing.

Kind regards

 

Thanks for your empathy of my plight Professor Kennedy. I will email you if my situation is unresolved. After all I won't be seeing the titles DBA after my name if the university decides to keep mum about the whole matter.

Local DBA programs have sprung up in my country at double the price of the one I enrolled on. I have till the end of next year to complete my dissertation or whatever threads of it before the university starts charging me AUD300 a month for late submission penalty. A stipulation that was not clearly stated in the conditions of the program. Infact, they wanted to charge me penalty starting from January. Fortunately, that action was overturned. It was a mistake they said. The pricy local DBAs has made the Aussie uni think about charging more, it is almost as if they realized that they were underpricing their commodity and now is trying to make up for it.

I am an educator too and lecture forty hours a week almost eight hours a day and have very little to show for it. I lecture degree programs validated by Western unis and produce graduates like factory widgets. Yes, it is a demeaning job. My only hope was for me to get a DBA to get a promotion and even then that was not forthcoming. Just got an increment of US$20 for the whole year. I am disillusioned with the education industry in this developing country and would you believe it, the franchisees of Western Unis are refranchising the degree programs to other developing countries. It is like recyling a widget to produce a peg. If I had received a DBA I would only get an increment of less than US$100. A paltry sum eh! We educators are even asked to write distance learning manuals for another Western university that is contentious in the writing front. I suspect that the franchise fee is lower when it is done that way. My email is [email protected]

Well at times I feel like a salami flat and round and other times a sausage well stuffed. Stuffed by the red tape, stuffed by the inadequacies of the system. I envy true academia, in our part of the world it is only a business no better than the world's oldest profession. I feel totally disillusioned.

 

Salami:

Let Dr. Kennedy have at them, I'll bet he doesn't take prisoners, so to speak.

 

Re: Australian university

I'm sorry for your situation. Clearly things like this should not occur. I have to say, however, that if you're waiting for this institution to investigate itself in an unbiased and thorough manner then you're extremely naive. I can understand your wanting to protect your considerable investment of time, effort, money, etc. but this organization has already flown it's true colors.
Jack

 

Re: Australian university

There are not many australian universities offering DBAs in other countries so I suppose the one you mentioned is on this list:

Charles Sturt University
University of Southern Queensland
University of South Australia
University of Newcastle

I'm a DBA student at USQ, and I know that they don't outsource dissertation supervision to other countries as all the supervisors listed in the dissertation handbook are full time faculty members at USQ.

I think that the practice of outsourcing supervision work to less developed countries is not very professional in my opinion but it is done by many DL Universities.

 

Charles Sturt University has study centers in Malaysia, India and other countries..

 

Spot on!!!!

The university is still trying to get its franchisee to find a suitable supervisor. I hope it is not one that will last only a few months and is lowly qualified for the job.

 

I am indeed surprised that through logical deduction all of you managed to deduce which university it is that is causing me so much loss sleep. I guess the cat is out of the bag and my only hope now is to complete my dissertation hopefully and according to them be examined by locally chosen examiners, slightly ironic since a dean from a local university said that there aren't any supervisors that are experts in my field of research. I wonder how they are going find some one suitable. Lost cause.

 

I just spoken with the coordinator of the franchisee and they still have not found a suitable supervisor and that I should discuss my case with its principal or academic director who is new and has replaced previous management who have left for another private college turned university college (also a franchisee of the university except it is for MBA programs). I am in a quandry but I am glad that I am able to express my feelings on this thread, it really helps me - like therapy.

I remembered when I read my MBA cases where strategic alliances had problems, in this case the problem has severely impacted on me. The lack of accountability between the two parties offering the DBA has meant that I am shuttling to and fro like a pendulum hung from a rusty old clock.

Thanks to all of you for contributing your advice and kind words of wisdom. It is worth more to me than any so called DBA if it is what I think it is? Much apprecition to Professor Kennedy for his empathy towards my plight. Flying solo without a rudder and heading for a destination that will not be.

You are right that there is a certain element of naivety after all I have been dreaming to complete this program since day one. Maybe it is just a dream. Hmmmmm.

 

I have come to a conclusion that Charles Sturt University will not award a DBA to me. I have suggested that I should email my dissertation to them and they have declined saying that it should be the responsibility of the franchisee Institute of Graduate Studies. I have asked IGS coordinator if they have found me a supervisor and the only answer they could give me is that I should see their academic advisor Professor Marimuthu to discuss the situation. Totally and absolutely wasting whatever precious time I have. I can't help feeling that I have wasted all that time, effort and money on a worthless cause and university that simply does not care about the welfare of its students. I have tried contacting the Vice Chancellor who also doesn't answer my emails and pushes the responsibility to the director of the DBA program Dr Grant O'Neill, who then pushes the responsibility to Jocelyn of IGS who then pushes the responsibility to Professor Marimuthu. What a merry go round. Is this what you would call an accredited, government university?

 

Salami89,

One way to deal with them directly, is to change your address to another country. You can claim that you need to move due to work and then find your self a mail forwarding service. That way, you don't need to deal with IGS that seems to be giving you so much trouble.

Don't give up, you have worked hard for that degree and you should try to get it.

 

There is a degreeinfo member doing his DBA at Charles Sturt. May be he can give you some advice to resolve the matter. By the way, USQ does not outsource dissertation supervision but supervisors are over loaded, my supervisor takes more than 4 months to say something about my dissertation work. The DBAs seem to be money making and some Australian Universities don't have the resources to cope with so much work load.

 

If Australian universities like Charles Sturt University cannot take the work load why charge people fees for courses that they will never make good. I now have a very bad impression about this university. I have sacrificed four years of my life and social time to pursue a never will be DBA. What a load of bull it is when universities like this are selling to the developing world. It is not going to improve the image of Australian tertiary education.

Some time back there was a scandal with another Australian university and now I feel this one has also thrown the spanner into the works. PURE MISREPRESENTATION.

 

Why dont you talk to Marimuthu and ask for his participation or have IGS to refund your money back.

http://www.igscollege.edu.my/staff_directory/index.htm

Management Team

Chief Executive Officer
P.B. Ashok
[email protected]

Academic Director
Professor Dato' Dr. T. Marimuthu
[email protected]

Senior Manager (Finance)
Fadzilah Abdul Rasool
[email protected]

Registrar
Sri Yanti Mohd Salmongel
[email protected]

Manager (Marketing)
Calvin Shim Kok Chau
[email protected]

Assistant Manager (PTPTN)
Azmil Idris
[email protected]

Head of Business School
Zulqarnain Mohd Tahir
[email protected]

Executive (Human Resource and Administration Office)
Joyce Lim
[email protected]

Librarian
Hairol Azura Abd. Aziz
[email protected]

 

My input here

I have not posted here in some time. However, after reading of the hard time so many are having with their studies I must add my $.02. I am a student with the Durban Institute of Technology pursuing a Doctor of technology in Business Administration. I am their first "distance" student and we have almost had to make up procedures as we went along. However, despite some early confusion their service has been outstanding. My supervisor is much more than that. She is a coach and mentor and seems to have as much interest as I do in completing my degree . Far from being hard to get ahold of, she contacts me if she thinks I may be slacking off. She encouraged me to present a paper derived from my research proposal and the intial pilot study for my dissertation to a peer reviewed conference sponsored by a US university . It was accepted and now I will be presenting at a conference much sooner than I would have attempted without her encouragement. The paper will also be reviewed for publishing in one of four journals so that will take care of another requirement for my degree. This quality of service also applies to the rest of the campus. My payment of fees was handled professionally and verification of my status forthcoming when I needed it for proof that I was a student. Administrative questions are handled promptly. They like to handle things by fax but have mostly accepted registration documents from me in .pdf format when my fax wouldn't communicate with theirs. Of course, some things have to come by mail (transcripts).

For anyone interested, a future student at DIT will be required to visit the school for registration and defense of your proposal; and to defend your dissertation (2 visits total). You must publish in a peer reviewed journal and present at an international conference. You can finish in a minimum of 2 years. The costs are normal for SA (inexpensive) and even with the required visits are very, very competitive when compared to a stateside school.
My service as I have mentioned has been outstanding. In my pinion, you cannot go wrong at least checking with DIT.

 

A very long time ago (like 1998 or 1999) when I was looking for a DL MBA program to do while I was living in Japan, I was considering EBS, Charles Sturt and USQ and some others. The Australian Universities were very attractive because the exchange rate between the Yen and AUD was very good. However when I asked some Australian co workers about Charles Sturt (reputation, quality of teaching, ect) they all told me I was better off avoiding them. There were many good comments about USQ however.

A year later I noticed that Charles Sturt was awarding credit in their DL MA in TESL program for taking courses with a local "university" in Japan that was clearly a degree mill. (I forgot the name of the place now. It was run by some guy out of his aparment who had a PhD from his own unversity.) To me this raised a red flag and told me the Charles Sturt didn't bother to check who they used to do business with in other contries or they didn't care.