It seems that the Western universities still have the desired prestige. Maybe one will set up in China for the lower costs and offer DL from there. Or maybe I shouldn't give Professor Kennedy any ideas.
Decimon: Maybe one will set up in China for the lower costs and offer DL from there. Or maybe I shouldn't give Professor Kennedy any ideas. John: Edinburgh Business School already offers its MBA in Chinese. One of the pioneers in mutli-language offerings. Hebrew, as well, and Spanish shortly. And Chiang Goldberg-Gonzalez can probably do it in all three.
Sounds like the promise of some spam I've received. Hadn't the courage to go the the website to find out.
Since you mention it! Since you raised the subject, not me(!), Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University offers its MBA in partnership with Shanghai Jiaotong University in Chinese (SJTU provide six faculty teachers and EBS sends out three of ours. The first cohort of part time Chinese students will complete in 2004; the second cohort is working through their first year and a third cohort will start in June 2004. In addition we commence an English language MBA course in July 2004. We also have an MBA course in Fujian province through a local government college. All students anywhere in the world can take their MBA exams in Chinese (the same exams as the English language students). Setting up an EBS campus in China with SJTU is under review and is subject to government regulations. To date, DL is confined to mainly expats in China, though we are experimenting with a satellite marketing medium, though the numbers are small currently. Our campus in Israel teaches in Hebrew and the students are examined in Hebrew. From February 2004 our Spanish language DL MBA commences marketing in the US and Latin America. In 2005, an Arabic translation will be available. This is for information only, arising from two comments in the thread and not for advertising. Degreeinfo is not one of our marketing mediums.
Professor, Thanks. That's interesting. It sounds as though the Israeli school is longer established than the others, so...do you know if more Israelis choose a Hebrew degree than choose an English degree? Trying to get a line on how ubiquitous is becoming the English language in the business world.
I am not familiar enough with Israeli language statistics to answer your question authoritatively. I do know that it is government policy to encourage the use of Hebrew in all aspects of public life. A fair number of students speak English, as do faculty. Originally there were many foreign English language MBAs in Israel but new regulations about foreign language MBA degrees came into effect and several foreign schools withdrew, and a couple were kicked out. By then we had switched to a Hebrew translation (we received a 5 year licence). Our MBA is taught in Hebrew, except when our faculty visit to meet the official requirements that one third of the degree is taught by the foreign faculty who teach the MBA in the home campus. I think insisting on the national language is a restrictive practice on political grounds. These regulations are becoming more onerous all round the world. China is large enough to have a two langauge solution and it is my impression that the most prestigious MBA programmes are those delivered in English. We do both. But this may be due to the level of foreign investment in China and its expanding trade with the rest of the world. In India there is a similar trend to more regulation and local delivery of MBAs in local languages. But English remains the main language of trade. Our new Commonwealth MBA is mandated to be in English for the 54 countries of the Commonwealth. The EBS MBA for Latin America and the southern US is a dual language model (English and Spanish).
