OUBS To Co-Develop Post-MBA Education Programme

The programme will be jointly developed and offered by four of the world’s leading distance education universities: the Open University/OUBS in the UK, Deakin University in Australia, Canada’s Athabasca University and the Hong Kong Open University.

The four universities have founded the World Alliance in Distance Education (WADE) which aims to attract and unite distance learning providers from around the globe.

Its first offering will be a one-year intensive post-MBA programme for working managers and professionals from June 2003.

The programme will be broken down into four courses and the areas covered will be:

• Corporate governance in a global environment

• International supply chain management

• Global trade and markets in changing economic and political environments

• Emerging issues in international business

The pilot programme in 2003 will accept MBA holders from the four partner schools and students who successfully pass all four modules will receive a certificate of completion. Each of the partners will assess the programme and award credit towards any appropriate Doctorate or PhD programmes.

Director of the OUBS MBA Programme, Richard Wheatcroft, says the post-MBA programme is an exciting development in the field of management education:

“Students will study online and participate in virtual international study groups allowing managers from different cultures, countries and companies to share ideas and information, ensuring a truly global learning experience.”

The Open University Business School (OUBS) is Europe’s leading business school and the major provider of management development programmes delivered by supported distance learning. It is one of an elite group of UK and European business schools to hold both the prestigious EQUIS quality kitemark, awarded by the European Foundation for Management Development (efmd), and AMBA (the Association of MBAs) accreditation for its MBA. Currently the OUBS has 30,000 students based in the UK and more than 40 countries. Since its inception in 1983, more than 150,000 managers have studied an OUBS course at Certificate, Diploma or MBA level. The OUBS has also developed a significant research capability based in eight research units, and boasts one of the three largest Alumni Associations for MBA graduates outside the United States.The School is based at the Open University’s Milton Keynes headquarters in Buckinghamshire. Its website can be found at: oubs.open.ac.uk