China lessons for business schools
Della Bradshaw | Friday, 27 June 2008
Many opted for joint EMBA programmes, but it has not all been plain sailing.
Cass Business School at City University in London, for example, has suspended its EMBA, which it ran in Shanghai, after enrolling just two classes. The school is unable to get money out of China, says Henrietta Royle, chief operating officer. "What the law says is that you must not make a profit out of education."
This has not put the school off working in the country. "China is probably Cass's most important market," says Ms Royle.Cass hopes to resolve the finance issue soon and restart the programme.
The story is eerily similar at the Smith school at the University of Maryland, which has shelved its EMBA in Beijing this year, though it plans to reintroduce the programme in future and is continuing to run its programme in Shanghai.
In contrast, Insead's joint EMBA with Tsinghua University is thriving, according to Edward Buckingham, associate director of the EMBA at Insead. With 50 per cent of the classes taught on Tsinghua's Beijing campus and 50 per cent at Insead in Singapore, the programme has attracted 25 per cent of its students from China.
Insead has bypassed the fees issue by being paid outside China in dollars. Mr Buckingham says that, like the corporates before them, business schools wanting to operate in China are often learning the hard way that they need to know the market.
For Ceibs in Shanghai, the doyen of western-style management education in China, the market seems to be growing, with 630 students on the Ceibs EMBA programme this year and 780 next.
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Cass Business School at City University in London, for example, has suspended its EMBA, which it ran in Shanghai, after enrolling just two classes. The school is unable to get money out of China, says Henrietta Royle, chief operating officer. "What the law says is that you must not make a profit out of education."
This has not put the school off working in the country. "China is probably Cass's most important market," says Ms Royle.Cass hopes to resolve the finance issue soon and restart the programme.
The story is eerily similar at the Smith school at the University of Maryland, which has shelved its EMBA in Beijing this year, though it plans to reintroduce the programme in future and is continuing to run its programme in Shanghai.
In contrast, Insead's joint EMBA with Tsinghua University is thriving, according to Edward Buckingham, associate director of the EMBA at Insead. With 50 per cent of the classes taught on Tsinghua's Beijing campus and 50 per cent at Insead in Singapore, the programme has attracted 25 per cent of its students from China.
Insead has bypassed the fees issue by being paid outside China in dollars. Mr Buckingham says that, like the corporates before them, business schools wanting to operate in China are often learning the hard way that they need to know the market.
For Ceibs in Shanghai, the doyen of western-style management education in China, the market seems to be growing, with 630 students on the Ceibs EMBA programme this year and 780 next.
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