A new model of delivering high quality management education in the developing world

Ok - so we have the top tier global business schools and the top tier regional business schools almost every where in the world. However, consider two specific markets where the need for management education has never been higher than before - and the supply of cost effective and research led management education is almost negligible. The two markets are India and almost every country in Africa (South Africa being an exception).

If one looks at these two markets carefully, one would notice absence of high class MBA schools - though India certainly has reputed pre-experience management programs (such as IIMs & XLRI) and also few top class MBA programs (eg ISB / MDI / SP Jain etc). However, considering the market size/ growth / potential etc, it is amazing that the global MBA industry has not tapped into the market yet to provide management education in these markets that can compete with the best in the world. By contrast, mainland China has close to 200 MBA schools - with at least 10 of them being world-class for local requirements. Thus, the demand for high quality management education far outstrips the supply in these regions.

My theory is there are two inter-related reasons for this gap: a) Top class schools require very good faculty which does not currently exist locally in these markets and b) Importing the faculty drives up the cost that translates itself into higher program fees, making the programs unaffordable.

We can learn from the two developing markets in the respective regions to find a solution - China has focussed primarily on part time management education and government subsidies. While government subsidies may not be the answer in India / Africa, high quality part time management education could be. Additionally, business schools in China as well as South Africa have built very close relationships with the industry that directly & indirectly subsidizes the education.

My future model of providing high quality and low cost management education in India / Africa is as follows:

a) Focus on executive MBA program delivery with program duration of 2-3 years (ie the program is delivered in modules - during the modules, the students attend the program on full time basis)

b) Aggregation of faculty time across various top schools world wide to teach on part time basis - Imagine a marketing professor from Harvard being able to teach on an Indian program for 2 hours per month, and charging only for his time (including preparation time) accordingly.

c) Reduce the travel requirement of the professor through use of technology (eg web conference to deliver the session / use of open source technologies to manage assignments etc) while getting the students together in a clas room for the session. It is a well documented fact that the value of an MBA is as much because of the peer group interaction and thus, this ensures that the students get face time with each other (only the professor delivers the sesion remotely).

d) Use local professors - again on part time basis - to provide region specific inputs into the class room learning.

e) Work with local corporates to provide technology infrastructure & facilities (eg conference rooms to be used as class rooms in the evenings/ week-ends when the delivery happens). This also allows the corporates to feed inputs into the program. Moreover, since the program delivery is part time, this ensures that the demands on corporate infrastructure are not unmanageable.

f) Ensure global standards of admission into the programs to ensure program quality. Most of the top programs - while having great program experience & faculty - also have great students to begin with.

g) Solid program management - an independent third party will almost run the whole program over its duration of 2-3 years to cover faculty & student recruitment, management of logistics like accomodation / technology/ class rooms etc during the actual delivery, management of student interactions with the faculty / corporates etc.

I am influenced by the recent thinking at MNCs and busines schools who advocate that 'Quality' is defined regionally and dictated by local requirements. Thus, if the above model can provide 50% of the quality of real global programs like Harvard - at 10% of the cost - to emerging regions that require them, then as far as I am concerned, the industry and the academic institutions have taken a great leap forward to improve access to those who need it most.