A unique tuition model, afford-ability, and the relevance of learning materials in the African context remain lynchpins of the Unisa Graduate School of Business Leadership’s (SBL) programme offerings.
So says Professor Anton Ferreira, the SBL’s executive director. ‘The SBL has, since its inception in the 1960s, pioneered, utilised and, over the years, refined a multi-mode tuition model of ‘blended learning’ in its programme offerings,” he says.
The SBL’s flagship programme is the master’s degree in business leadership (MBL). ‘As its unique name signifies, the stress is on the development of leadership potential,” Ferreira says. ‘The SBL’s founders were visionary in recognising that, in essence, the master’s degrees in business administration offered by business schools, which started proliferating at the time, should more aptly be named MBL, as the purpose of these was to produce captains of industry and business leaders.”
The Unisa course, the first MBL in the world, focuses on the elusive quality of leadership. Distance learning materials form the basis of delivering the MBL degree and other SBL executive education programmes. But these have always been complemented by compulsory and interactive week-long study schools held at the school every three to six months depending on the specific programme, Ferreira says.
Study groups and group assignments further broaden the basis of the tuition model, while lecturers also travel to main centres as far away as Harare and, most recently, Asmara in Eritrea, for group visits.
‘One outstanding advantage that the SBL therefore brings to pro- spective candidates is this unique teaching model, embodied by the SBL’s ‘Leadership in Practice’ tenet,” Ferreira says. Students remain in the workplace, applying their newly acquired skills on the job.
The model also ensures that, in a country and continent with a huge demand for the development of leadership skills, space constraints in terms of the number of students that can be accommodated are not an issue, a feature the SBL shares with its mother institution, Unisa, which has more than 140 000 degree students.
With the advent of the Internet, it is possible for the school to form virtual study groups for geographically dispersed students who are unable to meet on a regular basis for study group and group assignment purposes. This further expands the reach of the SBL’s programmes and increases their accessibility.
Following the advances made in information and communication technologies, the SBL developed and launched its own electronic delivery system in the mid-Nineties, ‘revolutionising open and distance learning and substantially enhancing interactivity in the learning experience”, Ferreira says.
Study material, prescribed reading, case studies, assignments and comments on assignments were from then on available online and in real time, also facilitating direct contact with both lecturers and fellow students on individual and group bases.
The SBL also pioneered in 1972 the development of part-time, tailor-made programmes in line with the specific needs of corporates (Anglo, Barlows, Eskom, Iscor, Sappi, Sasol, Siemens, Vodacom). ‘It delivered these programmes in the workplace, as well as enhanced the learning experience by blending workplace learning with the other elements of the SBL’s multi-modal tuition model,” Ferreira says.
Videoconferencing via satellite and with a global reach is increasingly being explored at the SBL — ‘all the technologies bringing lecturers, students and learning content ever closer together, and striving to enhance elements of contact, taking the distance out of open and distance learning”, Ferreira says.
The SBL also offers an MBA in co-operation with the Open University in the United Kingdom. This MBA brings with it the Open University Business School’s expertise and the European Foundation for Management Development’s sought-after Equis accreditation. The MBA remains a Unisa qualification registered with the South African Qualifications Authority and accredited by the Council on Higher Education, Ferreira stresses.
In March this year, the SBL took a major step when the Unisa council granted it operational autonomy. ‘A newly constituted SBL board will function as a direct committee of the university council, and will exercise all management and governance responsibilities with delegated authority for operational decision-making and full control over revenues and expenses, independent of the corresponding structures within the university,” Ferreira says.
However, ‘academic integrity and the maintenance of the highest academic standards will continue to be assured by direct interaction with the university senate on all formal degree programmes and regarding all senior staff appointments”.
Ferreira refers to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey confirming that the success of several leading international business schools can be attributed mainly to their obtaining a measure of autonomy from their parent institutions. ‘This enables speedy and appropriate responses as conditions warrant in an extremely competitive business education market,” Ferreira says.
The SBL also records ever-growing student numbers — this year saw a 50% increase in first-year MBLs — and has far outstripped equity targets. Of this year’s intake of 759, 70% are from previously disadvantaged groups, the overwhelming majority being black, while close to 25% are international (mostly from the rest of Africa, but representing more than 30 countries).
The school’s faculty composition is 25% black, close to a third female and has a growing international component. ‘The SBL’s vision is to be the leading business school in Africa, with a focus on developing leadership and management competencies of particular relevance to the challenges faced by emerging economies,” Ferreira says.
The school’s research focus areas reflect this vision — they include Africa change leadership, doing business in Africa, appropriate technologies and corporate governance (in direct association with the Centre for Corporate Citizenship of Unisa).