[photopress:Portland_State_University.jpg,full,alignright]Portland State University managers are negotiating to offer China’s first online graduate business degree in a deal with Peking University, Beijing.
Take note of the word ‘online’ It is key to the importance of this news item.
The program would address a growing need, as China’s economy booms, for middle managers trained in business leadership.
This is very important. If it is possible to study for an EMBA primarily through using the Internet – and this is yet to be demonstrated, and initially it will be combined with campus training – then the possibilities in China are enormous.
Sully Taylor, PSU business school associate dean for academic affairs said as many as 55 students, probably Chinese workers accessing the Internet at their companies, would enter the program next March. After a year of studies in China, the first class would come to Portland for a second and final year.
Sully Taylor said, ‘This gives us experience delivering the eMBA in an international setting.’
The venture combines with other Chinese programs launched by PSU recently. PSU offers study-abroad opportunities in China, an undergraduate engineering program in Shanghai and training for Chinese officials on sustainable land-use management. China’s government recently opened a Confucius Institute at PSU to promote Chinese language and culture.
PSU’s business school, which has about 350 MBA students, has offered distance learning for years. Chinese students, who will study in English, will pay tuition of $22,000. PSU aims to profit on the deal.
PSU awaits approval of the program by its accrediting organization and by the Oregon university system, said Scott Dawson, School of Business dean. If it works, and that has yet to be proved, it could, at the very least, change the course of EMBA training.
Source: Oregon Live