African Business Schools in the Heat of Global Competition?
The annual LeaderEx and MBA-Expo exhibitions in Johannesburg of 2023 welcomed a particularly strong group of North American and European business schools, the largest ever. National champions such as Stellenbosch, GIBS, Cape Town were joined by an elite group of Northern Hemisphere schools in the shape of Hult (USA), IE University (Spain), HEC Paris (France), Manchester (UK), and IMD (Switzerland), to mention a few of the dozen internationals. Is this good news for African management education or a wake-up call?
When we look around the world, education has become a global industry and business schools are often at the forefront of this. There are global brands competing for students and academic talent. Even less-familiar names can compete in a global marketplace for students using the reputation of their country for higher education as a lever. Indeed, a number of websites act as gateways to these global offerings. As an example, studyportals.com, run out of the Netherlands, currently lists over 22,000 Master's degrees in business and management around the world.
Returning to the exhibition... on the one hand, this is a good sign that global, top-quality business schools are coming to one of Africa’s leading higher education events to offer their programs. It is also a recognition of the talent that exists in the country and in Africa, and perhaps the potential role of South Africa as a hub for management education on the continent. These global players can help drive up both the reputation of a country as a destination for study as well as the quality, offers and innovation among national players. In this sense the competition could be good for African students and schools.
This quality is already present in South Africa. The country has three national schools with the prestigious triple crown of global accreditations – AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA – placing them among an elite group of just over 100 worldwide. Also of the 12 AMBA accredited schools on the continent, eight are in South Africa. These schools can count among their global partnerships leading higher education institutions that offer their South African students the possibility of exchanges and collaborations with the top students in other countries around the world.
To illustrate the potential and the concentration in South African, the studyportals database currently lists 450 master programmes in business and management in Africa with most in South Africa (345). Given the population of the continent, and its youthful dimension, this is a tiny offer. By comparison, there are over 9000 programmes in Europe. It is thus perhaps no surprise that the South African management education market has piqued interest of global university brands.
From another perspective the presence of these top schools at a South African education exhibition also illustrates the international competition for African business schools themselves, and for their parent universities. For this international competition national boundaries no longer act as a deterrent in the post-pandemic online study world. The relative prestige of the South African management education market means that it may both attract students from overseas but also overseas institutions may be attracted by potential students. Furthermore, South African schools have a patchy performance in recruiting from across the continent and the potential market is huge.
One of the key characteristics of the markets that these international schools originate from is that they are rather saturated and the populations are ageing. As in any sector of the economy, organisations facing saturated markets seek new areas to sell their products and services. Unlike Europe, North America, and parts Asia (where birth rates are falling well below replacement rate) Africa offers an expanding supply of the young people. Furthermore, in some contexts, national regulations on fees for local students, but not international students, can make overseas recruitment a useful option for cash-strapped higher education institutions.
The effects of COVID also plays an important role. Some South African schools have led the way in taking advantage of new technologies in order to offer blended, hybrid and completely online programs that can meet the time and geographical challenges post-experience postgraduates face. However, such technologies know no national boundaries and international schools see an opportunity to offer online learning opportunity degrees around the world. One does not have to spend much time on social media in Africa before an advert appears from an international university offering an online or hybrid programme.
International competition does not stop in the online space. Over recent decades a series of leading European and American institutions have established satellites of the business schools in Asia. A leader among these was INSEAD (also present at the Johannesburg Exhibition) using Singapore as a location for a new campus in 2000. Today there are numerous business schools with satellite campuses in Singapore and Shanghai. This trend was subsequently repeated in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and elsewhere in the middle east. It may not be long before Africa witnesses similar in implantations providing direct, in-person and local competition for national institutions.
Meanwhile higher education, and particularly management education, in Africa can be seen as an investment area. For example, leading business schools such as the UK’s Lancaster, INSEAD, and the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) all have activities in countries such as Ghana. In South Africa, the University of Reading from the UK (owner of Henley Business School) has had a business school since 2002. Although it is not always plain sailing, as Monash found in South Africa with its recent departure after 18 years in the country. Nevertheless, many of the French schools also have successful campuses in North Africa including ESSEC, Toulouse Business Schools and Montpellier among others.
For the private sector, African high education is considered as a potential investment opportunity. Across the continent business education is a mix of public and private providers. Indeed the African Association of Business Schools (AABS) represents both public and private providers. A group such as Regenesys owns schools in South African, Kenya and Nigeria. The French higher education group Galileo Global Education bought the Senegalese group ISM in 2017 while in South Africa Regent Business School became a member of the pan-African group Honoris United Universities in 2017.
What does this mean for African business schools? A country like South Africa could become the continental hub for management education where academic quality, faculty and programmes in local and international institutions attract an ever-increasing number of students from the continent. While other countries do not have the pedigree of South African business schools they may be seen as attractive destinations for students, universities with global ambitions, and private sector investors. African business schools could also become casualties of well-resourced, agile international competition market. While South Africa has the world class business schools, the world class facilities, and the world-class accreditations it will also need an openness to world-class academics and students if it is to exploit its position and become a key educational destination for the continent. African is likely to be the new frontier for management education and it will be interesting to see who else comes to join the party at the exhibition in Johannesburg in 2024.
[Note: this is a longer form article of an interview given to Financial Mail as “MBAs from South Africa to the World” published here].