[photopress:alan_white.jpg,full,alignright]MIT Sloan School of management is one of the top business schools in the world. It established the MIT-China Management Education Project in 1996 with two distinguished Chinese educational institutions — Tsinghua University in Beijing and Fudan University in Shanghai.
In an interview Alan White, the senior associate dean of MIT Sloan and shown here in China, said, ‘Our approach is to work with Chinese Faculty and educators to assist them in determining their definition of a Chinese MBA. Educational materials in China need to be developed based on Chinese practice, not on Western practice. For this reason, we do not transport MIT to China; we consider the approach of establishing Western schools in other countries the missionary approach. This is not our concept. Our program focuses on Chinese faculty development. To develop a great university you develop the faculty.’
This co-operation between MIT and China goes back a fair way. Alan White said, ‘The origin goes back to the opening of China in 1979. When China opened, we began extensive contact initially through the former Ministry of Machinery and Electronics and we worked with the Shanghai Institute of Mechanical Engineering.
‘We were asked by many Chinese schools to work with them but it took some years for us to establish our formal collaborations which initially were with Tsinghua and Fudan.
‘In order to establish our independence we raised resources for the collaborations from outside China.’
‘In the short time, 25 years, I’ve been working in China, I have seen remarkable progress in Chinese management education. Inside 25 more years, Chinas top schools will be fully globally competitive.
‘There does need to be more emphasis on the development of schools outside Beijing, Shanghai and other prominent cities. Business schools lead economic development and top business schools are located where economies are strong. There are areas of China that are behind and that need more emphasis to equalize development in China.’
‘That is one reason why we are working at Yunnan University along with our work at Tsinghua, Fudan and Lingnan.’
Source: People’s Daily Online
