The world’s top-quality MBAs would probably not be accredited by the Council on Higher Education (CHE). If Stanford University, for example, wanted to establish a campus in South Africa to offer its prestigious MBA, it would fail to meet several CHE criteria.
Stanford offers an international MBA. This would not satisfy CHE’s requirements that all MBAs be ‘localised†and all heavily oriented towards local practices.
The Stanford MBA would fail to meet the CHE’s requirement that half of the programme consist of a thesis, and that the action research method must be used.
If Stanford staffed its campus with faculty on rotation from its campus in the United States, this would offend CHE’s requirement that the bulk of the staff be residents of South Africa. If some of these staff came from outside Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, this would also earn the CHE’s displeasure.
If ‘Stanford South Africa†provided its students with magnificent electronic access to information resources, the CHE would probably take exception because its evaluators couldn’t ‘count the books in the libraryâ€.
This highlights the impact of the CHE’s policies. This outcome is deliberate, but it will seriously disadvantage South African students. But the CHE seems determined to impose its own exclusive MBA model on the higher education system, regardless of the costs.
The CHE’s message to MBA students in South Africa is that they can study MBAs here only if the degree programme conforms to the CHE’s formula. Failure to comply means no accreditation. If students don’t want the CHE-authorised MBA, then that’s tough. The CHE size must fit all — take it or leave it!
The CHE trumpets its commitment to improving access to higher education. But forcing MBA providers to offer only one type of MBA will restrict access to internationally prestigious degrees to those South Africans who are rich enough to enrol in high-class Internet programmes, or who can afford to study internationally. The rich get to enjoy the widest range of choice, the rest will take what CHE has decided is good for them. So much for equity and access.
There is much loose talk to the effect that the CHE has examined ‘the quality of MBAsâ€. This is untrue. All it has done is to examine MBA missions, teaching arrangements, and some governance, equity and assessment matters.
The CHE’s position is clear. The non-negotiable mission of all MBA providers in South Africa must be to offer non-specialist, research based, locally-oriented MBAs. These must be delivered effectively in terms of the CHE’s requirements. Some limited scope for variations will be allowed within the CHE’s design and delivery regulations.
The views of graduates, students and employers on the worth of particular MBA degrees are irrelevant. By definition, if they don’t conform to the CHE’s prescribed mission and delivery regulations, then the degrees can have no value.
Outcomes, such as whether the MBAs are of value to graduates and their employers, or whether graduates can manage organisations in an extremely complex environment, are of minor importance in the CHE scheme of things. Effective delivery of the CHE-preferred mission is all that counts.
The CHE has thus damaged the lives of many people by withdrawing accreditation from some MBAs on the basis that it, the regulator, is superior to students, their families and employers in determining what is in their best interests.
The CHE’s policies are objectionable because no choice in important matters is permitted. Its dogmatic approach sits very strangely with the government’s emphasis on mission diversity in the transformation of South African higher education.
And the CHE’s regulation of provider missions may lie outside its legislative mandate. This empowers it to deal with programme issues. In most higher education regulatory systems, universities and other providers are broadly free to determine their own missions. The serious reduction of this freedom by the CHE is a radical change in South African higher education.
Normally, various providers could be expected to design MBAs very closely attuned to features of South African society, while others would offer different perspectives. Some would equip students with research skills; some would have other priorities. Students could have thus chosen from a range of MBAs according to their needs.
But all this has changed recently. The CHE now says that all students, for example, must write a research thesis regardless of whether the student wishes to do this or not.
Internationally there are many high-quality MBAs that are not research degrees. But the CHE knows better. All MBAs offered in South Africa are forced by the CHE to emphasise research.
All important stakeholders should recognise that there are many different MBAs the holders of which can contribute creatively to the development of South Africa and to the international community. The CHE, however, deliberately prevents access by many South Africans to these MBAs.
This subverts the national Human Resource Development Strategy. It would appear, however, that employers, in particular, have not recognised what is happening and have apparently accepted the proposition that we now know which are the ‘good†MBAs.
The CHE claims that its accreditation processes have protected South African MBA students against ‘fly-by-night†predators. This is untrue.
The 15 de-accredited MBAs had nothing to do with ‘fly-by-night†operators. These MBAs were registered on the National Qualifications Framework; they were accredited when introduced; and the providers were vetted by the national Department of Education. The ‘fly-by-night†operators, who will e-mail you an MBA on the basis of your life’s story, have not disappeared.
The CHE justifies its heavy regulatory behaviour on the grounds that it is protecting MBA students against exploitation. This is surely a smokescreen. Its regulations go far beyond those necessary for consumer protection. The real agenda is to impose a particular, limited MBA. Is this part of a philosophical battle against the ‘industry-driven†educational/training model, which is associated with the national Department of Labour?
The CHE evaluation model is conceptually inadequate in important respects even in its own terms. The model uses 13 criteria to evaluate provider performance. The CHE uses a ‘detailed set of minimum standards†in this exercise. But there are important instances where these ‘standards†are not standards at all. They are simply a variation of the wording of the original 13 criteria.
The ‘minimum standards†in research, for example, refer to productivity and research funding without mentioning quantitative measures. Requirements such as ‘Faculty members do their own research and publish the results†are not standards.
The CHE went ahead with its MBA Review, and then withdrew certain accreditations, even though the South African Qualifications Authority (Saqa) had not determined the legal definition of a master’s degree. There was, and still is, no Saqa standard for a master’s degree. How, in view of this, was the CHE able to proceed with its review? Was this was a lawful exercise of the CHE’s powers?
The CHE’s publicly available material raises more questions than it answers. How did the CHE decide if students/graduates displayed ‘understanding†and ‘application of basic management principlesâ€? Presumably the CHE conducted research into the ‘actual quality of teaching and learning†in MBA programmes. Did the CHE submit a proper sample of student essays, exam scripts, research papers and theses for independent evaluation in the MBA evaluation process?
Did the CHE conduct a searching examination of the Recognition of Prior Learning and Credit Transfer policies and outcomes in each MBA provider? What were the results?
South Africa’s vice-chancellors have collectively remained publicly silent with regard the CHE’s MBA review. Presumably those whose MBAs won first prize will not look a gift horse in the mouth.
But maybe this is short-sighted. A government agency that is deciding matters of institutional mission, curriculum, pedagogy, research method and so on reduces the space available to institutional autonomy and academic freedom. Where is the leadership from our most senior scholars on these vital issues? Perhaps such matters are now only the concerns of old-fashioned liberals. Are they of any importance in the new South Africa?
Professor Doug Blackmur is Standard Bank Professor of Management at the University of the Western Cape