INTERVIEW
E arlier this year, AMBA & BGA hosted an exclusive workshop, designed for Business School professionals and faculty, to outline how Schools can support students, graduates, and teaching faculty by forming strong links with overseas institutions. The session drew on the example of an international programme between EDHEC Business School in France, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, and UCLA Extension in the US. Henrick Totterman, Dean of Accreditations, North America, at HULT International Business School, was joined by Angelo Bisignano, Director, EDHEC International BBA, and Denis Couturier, Director of Custom Programs and Corporate Education, UCLA Extension, to discuss the strategy in depth. Could you provide some background into the development of programmes in business education?
So, what makes your joint programme different?
despite the fact we could, qualitatively speaking, see good institutions with well- designed programmes. When partnerships such as this existed, they were run as bilateral agreements between Schools, and were not all in the same field of study. They were normally designed to offer students a cultural educational pathway to allow them a bit of experience and flavour of a different country and educational system.
AB: The programme I want to discuss has thrived as a result of changes in the higher education landscape. The challenges we’re facing, and the solutions we’ve found, are here to stay. The social impact of Business Schools is becoming more relevant. Research, teaching, and student activity are now
measured in terms of impact. Another aspect is responsible
So why would you say joint programmes didn’t take off at this point?
management, and this is going to stay relevant. Courses must inspire students to manage responsibly – not just to be effective, but to embed sustainability, finance and so on, into the ‘everydayness’ of management. Lifelong learning is vital, but it is treated differently across states and continents. Around the world, there are great examples of how lifelong learning can be improved and managed, but there is not a homogenous approach to it. Two further trends are emerging. Hybridisation is one. This allows students to think outside of the box and move beyond the course they’re taking. In the US, business students can take classes in other areas, but this is new in Europe and Asia. The evolution of learning methods means that it’s time to go beyond the classroom and how [Schools] work with students. The pandemic highlighted the importance of online and asynchronous teaching; audiences are diverse in terms of how the engage with content. We designed a four-year programme, promoted by the Business School,
AB: Higher education sees a lot of [faculty and leadership] turnover, and these programmes require mental energy and dedication. Often, the momentum around vested personal interests wane when promoters move on from roles. Schools often decide to move to work independently. Misaligned calendars and conflicting requirements from ministries, as well as different credit requirements, cause limitations. Assurance of quality processes is important, and there has been developments in this area, but Schools are not always on the same path; partnerships are about both taking the lead. Finally, joint programmes are often ‘boutique’, and while they are important within the portfolio, they require a lot of attention. When the strategy of the Business School adapts, these programmes are the ones that are impacted. This list is not [exhaustive] but suggests why joint programmes have not lived up to the initial hype.
Angelo Bisignano (AB): Joint programmes have, for a while, been in the literature of
executive education; a decade ago, they promised to be the future of transnational education.
This was like Emerald City [from The Wizard of Oz ] – the place where we should all aim to arrive; it promised to revolutionise the future of higher education. There were some fantastic examples from around the world but, in general, joint programmes were marginal in terms of numbers of students and income generated for institutions,
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