How Covid is recalibrating business schools

Life, says Kumeshnee West, is like a bag of liquorice allsorts. You don’t necessarily like the bitter liquorice on its own but, mixed with sweet candy, it’s irresistible. "You can’t have one without the other," she says. "They belong together."

West, head of executive education at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), is talking in particular about the impact on SA business schools of 16 months of Covid lockdown.

There’s been bitterness aplenty. For many, revenue has plummeted as cash-strapped companies and individuals canned executive education programmes. Impressive campuses have stood empty because of social distancing. Academics have had to unlearn years, sometimes decades, of experience in order to undertake new teaching methods.

On the other hand, the pandemic has forced business schools to confront the future head-on.

The shift from face-to-face classroom teaching to online tuition was never in doubt — only the pace of transition. As Rhodes Business School director Owen Skae admits: "If it had not been for Covid, we would not have embarked on these things so early or to the level we have."

Now that it’s been forced on them, most schools say they and their students prefer the new pattern. Whether that’s true, or whether they’re simply putting on a brave face (North-West University Business School director Jan van Romburgh says his students are "jumping up and down" to return to the classroom), there is no doubt that the style of business school education has changed irrevocably. Everyone talks now of "hybrid" or "blended" learning, in which classroom teaching plays a mostly secondary role to online. It’s education’s new sweet spot.

The pandemic has given SA business schools another, unexpected opportunity — to expand their global presence. American, Chinese, French, British and even Australian schools are omnipresent around the world, through thought leadership, distance education or, in some cases, local campuses.

SA schools, in contrast — even internationally ranked ones — are notable for their brand invisibility.

Joburg-based Regenesys Business School, with campuses in India and Nigeria, is an exception. Dean Penny Law says its digital offerings attract students from 190 countries.

A lack of self-confidence may be partly to blame for SA’s low-key approach to globalisation. But so are the cost and time required to build an international presence. Both of these have been rendered largely redundant by digital transition, allowing schools and their academics to spread their ideas and gospel to the world.

UK-born Stellenbosch University Business School director Mark Smith says SA schools appear not to realise the respect in which they are held. They will never enjoy the status of a Harvard or Insead, but they can build considerable brand recognition.

"There is international interest in Africa," he says. "Where better to learn about it than from an African school? If you want to learn about diversity, come to SA. We live it daily. The same for transformation. Who knows better what works and what doesn’t?"

There’s certainly room to grow. As HB Klopper, research and institutional dean of the Da Vinci Institute business school observes: "When foreign business schools talk about African issues, it’s usually with little context and big heads."

Henley Africa dean Jon Foster-Pedley, whose school is a part of a UK-based parent, believes SA needs just one "juggernaut" school to force open the way for others.

Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs) interim dean Morris Mthombeni is perhaps more measured. He believes some schools should ride the international wave on the back of their parent universities.

"We have some of the world’s top-ranked universities in SA. Let’s use that to our advantage," he says "As a collective, SA business schools have been slow to internationalise themselves as an entity. We have to build our country as a destination for business education."

That will require the changing of perceptions. "Some of our schools are world-class, but I don’t think their international cachet is close to that of even second-or third-tier US schools," says Stellenbosch executive development CEO Chris van der Hoven.

The way forward, says Cape Town GSB director Catherine Duggan, is for local schools to use the digital opportunity to raise the profile of not only African business education, but of African innovation in general.

"There is amazing stuff happening on the continent that no-one knows about, even Africans themselves," she says. "I would like us to be sharing those stories with the world. If we don’t, they will be told by people who have never been to Africa and don’t understand their context and importance."

New ways of teaching

Online teaching falls into two camps: synchronous and asynchronous. The first refers to real-time teaching, in which lecturers and students engage in live sessions. The latter is predominantly recorded lectures that students can access in their own time.

In 2020, there was a significant drop in demand from SA companies for synch- ronous executive education programmes. While still heavily outnumbered, asynchronous alternatives soared.

That growth appears to have slowed in 2021, and Van der Hoven says demand for blended, synchronous courses has rebounded quickly.

At the same time, demand for customised executive education programmes, tailor-made for corporate clients, is approaching pre-Covid levels at GSB, says West.

Others are experiencing a slower recovery. Nelson Mandela University Business School director Randal Jonas says 2020 was a year of "shock and awe", causing many companies to suspend all programmes. They are now "slowly re-engaging".

Duke Corporate Education’s Sharmla Chetty thinks it will be at least 2023 before the overall executive education market recovers fully. "The market has changed fundamentally and so has Duke," she says. "Very early, we took the view that Covid was here for two to three years, and we have adjusted accordingly."

However, the intermittent nature of Covid lockdowns makes it hard to gauge the market, says Wits Business School executive education head Leoni Grobler. Demand cranked up early this year, when companies thought the economy was ready to reopen, then slowed again when it didn’t and harder lockdowns were imposed.

"Training budgets were cut, then relaxed, now they closing up again," she says. "There’s tremendous uncertainty among employers."

Recent riots and looting will have done nothing to reassure them.

Uncertainty may extend to what employers can expect from online education. Some academics claim that face-to-face and online teaching offer students the same experience, but Mthombeni believes they are "very different".

The biggest advantage of online education is convenience.

"Employers are swayed by benefits like reduced costs of travel, accommodation and meals," says Law. "They also prefer it because it can be integrated into employees’ schedules. Instead of taking employees out of the workplace for two or three days, online programmes are presented in two-hour sessions over several weeks."

As long as they have a screen and a signal, students can access lectures from anywhere. But there are limitations.

Milpark Business School dean Cobus Oosthuizen suggests that legendary Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock’s dictum — that film lengths should be dictated by the capacity of the human bladder — should also apply to online education. Actually, it’s not the bladder that’s the problem. It’s the eyes and brain. Staring into a small, flickering screen for hours on end is inadvisable.

The trend is towards shorter, sharper teaching sessions. As Chetty says: "Go much beyond 90 minutes and you start to lose participants."

Some academics say that without the distractions of an open classroom, online teaching is more intense and enables students to absorb more knowledge.

Regent Business School director Ahmed Shaikh, for example, makes the point that "business education is becoming more aligned to what the student wants, rather than what is convenient for the school".

Tshwane School of Business & Society, director Kobus Jonker, says many students prefer the intimacy of online education.

Now, with exams and moderating also moving online, "we are talking of a personalised, paperless education", he says.

Pros and cons

Jonker is not the only one to argue that online synchronous teaching can be more intimate than the traditional kind. Instead of interacting loosely with a sea of raised hands and voices in an open classroom, lecturers can respond to every question raised by every student.

This helps students who are too shy to ask questions in an ordinary classroom.

Says Shaikh: "Often, the students most in need of explanation are the ones least likely to put up their hands for fear of drawing attention to themselves. That’s not an issue online. You could argue this is a more democratic way of teaching."

The disadvantage, says Jonas, is that online lecturers find it harder to identify the personal signals of face-to-face teaching.

"Online, it is difficult to ascertain if they are really engaged. In a face-to-face setting there are so many little nuances that a facilitator can pick up and weave into the class experience," he explains.

Online also deprives lecturers and students alike of what West calls "in-between moments".

"That’s when you go off together during breaks for a coffee and a quick chat. We have been robbed of these," she says.

Similarly, Jonas adds: "For lecturers, picking up on tea-time informal talks and observing what students are reading during breaks can lead to current and stimulating discussions."

Asynchronous, recorded lectures allow students to absorb information at their own pace. If they don’t understand something first time, they can play it again. The disadvantage is that they can’t get immediate answers or feedback from lecturers. Nor is there class interaction.

It is, says Jonas, "a relatively lonely journey requiring self-discipline". West is not a fan. Without classroom interaction and shared ideas, "it’s a brain dump", she says.

For lecturers, the pressure of adapting to these new methods is considerable — particularly those who have spent long careers teaching face-to-face.

Van Romburgh notes: "Some academics struggle to cope with online teaching. There is anxiety. We have seen cases of burnout."

Academics say synchronous online teaching requires more preparation than face-to-face, where experienced teachers can adopt a more ad hoc, informal approach. But Foster-Pedley says that’s not a bad thing.

"It’s an exciting evolution," he says. "We are moving away from rote teaching to dynamic education. Good educators will be able to play with their new tools. The best teachers are artists who create magic. The worst are automatons. That doesn’t change just because there’s a screen between them and their students. You can still engage with people and get reactions."