The government’s Council on Higher Education (CHE) has launched an investigation into the operations of SA business schools. But, despite the apparently combative wording of its correspondence to schools, those involved in the project say it is no more than a fact-finding exercise to understand the full scope of the business education market.
According to the CHE, “a concern has been raised” that some university business schools may be offering higher-education qualifications that have not been accredited by national quality-standards bodies, and that these schools are “operating outside of legislative requirements” and misrepresenting the validity of those qualifications.
It doesn’t explain where the concern originated, or whether there were one or more complainants. Only that it has been asked by the SA Qualifications Authority to investigate the allegation.
Schools the FM canvassed say they are not aware of any misrepresentation.
There are 22 local schools offering MBAs in SA. At any given time, there are 8,000-10,000 students at various stages of their programmes, having paid nearly R2bn in fees. Aggregate executive education income won’t be far behind.
In a preliminary survey late last year, schools did not respond “satisfactorily”, says the CHE, which has now included private business schools in the study.
Helena van Zyl, who chairs the CHE panel appointed to run the survey, says she is unaware of any allegations and that her brief is simply to gain as much information as possible about the business schools sector.
“This is not a witch-hunt,” says Van Zyl, a former director of the University of the Free State Business School. “We’re not looking for wrongdoing. The CHE simply wants to understand the nature and scope of the business schools market.”
Despite saying in the past that it wanted to undertake comprehensive studies of the sector, the CHE has blamed lack of capacity for its inability to do so. It means, says Anne Wilson, GM of the SA Business Schools Association and a member of the eight-person panel, that a study is long overdue.
“The CHE hasn’t done a proper audit for years,” Wilson tells the FM. “It wants to improve its understanding of the industry and of its nature.”
Wilson says the information garnered will help the SA business schools community raise its international profile.
Schools have until the end of August to complete detailed questionnaires about every aspect of their activities, including relationships with parent universities, quality management, governance structures and processes.
They must also produce evidence of registration and accreditation status of all qualifications between levels 5 and 10 of the national qualifications framework. That equates to college diplomas, up to doctorates.
“Given the level of detail required in the questionnaire, it’s possible a school may find it has inadvertently missed a registration step for a qualification. This is an opportunity to identify and fix the error,” Wilson says.
It may happen that the panel finds an error of this nature, she adds. “But we’re not looking for it.”
One school director, who asks to remain anonymous, says the tone of CHE’s circulars suggests otherwise. “I hope I’m wrong.”
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