[photopress:MBA_fakes_1.jpg,full,alignright]If you do a search for MBA using Google you will be offered a large number of choices in the advertisements which will show you how to get an MBA very quickly. It may, of course, be not the sort of MBA that serious companies recognize.
A recent BBC London investigation proved, there are some fraudulent institutions offering educational qualifications which are bogus.
MBA courses are particularly vulnerable to this type of fraud because MBAs do not have to be accredited and almost any college may teach them.
Jeanette Purcell, chief executive of the Association of MBAs, who took part in the BBC program, said, ‘There is definitely a problem there. We do come across organizations that make spurious claims about the quality standards they have met. It’s also possible for organizations to give misleading information — for instance, giving the impression that they are accredited when they are not.’
Accreditation can be another source of complication for MBA students, in that there are three separate accreditation systems.
AMBA (the Association of MBAs) focuses on the MBA program rather than the business school as a whole, and currently accredits 143 program worldwide, the majority in the UK. Demand for this accreditation is growing in China and India but it would appear that none have met the fairly stringent criteria, which include accepting on courses only those students who have at least three years’ business experience.
EQUIS (the European Quality Improvement System) is awarded by the European Foundation for Management Development, which accredits 100 schools in 31 countries, including outside Europe. It measures a school particularly on its internationalization and its balance between high academic standards and business relevance.
AACSB (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) is principally a North American accreditation outfit, but increasing numbers of schools outside the US now seek this in their efforts to attract US students. The accreditation looks for high standards in managing resources and cultivating good staff-student relationships.
Kai Peters, CEO at Ashridge Business School, one of only 29 schools worldwide to be accredited by all three said, ‘The three accreditation systems can be confusing. But if you’re considering investing up to $840,000, it’s worth spending 20 minutes Googling to find out what they all mean. The further away you’re going and the less you know about that particular market, the more careful you have to be.’
Source: The Independent
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