Former US president Bill Clinton, in his successful 1992 bid for the presidency against incumbent George HW Bush, famously based his campaign, during a recession, on the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid!”
When it comes to choosing a business school, findings by the Gallup polling company suggest the phrase should be “It’s the teachers, stupid.” The 2025 Gallup-Purdue Index study of 30,000 university alumni found that those with supportive professors were more likely to succeed in business.
As Thula Mngoma, an academic at Durban-based Regent Business School, puts it: “Rankings, reputations and facilities all play a role [in selecting a school], but the most important question for any prospective student should be: who are the people doing the teaching?”
Course content is only part of what great faculty offer, she says. “The rest comes down to mentorship — the personal investment academics make in their students’ growth. For many postgraduates, personalised guidance is the magic key which unlocks leadership potential.”
Actually, there is more than one magic key. Of course the quality of teaching is important. But, as many students and alumni will attest, it is not the only factor.
Like parents of school-age children, who must decide whether to choose a school exclusively on the basis of academic achievement or take into account sport and cultural activities for a more rounded and socially inclusive education, prospective business students should consider everything a school has to offer.
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Some promise only online education, so personal interaction with other students is limited, sometimes nonexistent. That is particularly so when lessons are asynchronous, meaning pre-recorded and played at a student’s convenience. Online synchronous lessons, by contrast, are played “live” so students can engage in real time with classmates and lecturers, even if it’s only through a screen.
The most important question for any prospective student should be: who are the people doing the teaching?
— Thula Mngoma
Some schools still offer face-to-face teaching in a traditional classroom or lecture theatre, but most consider online or “hybrid” (a mixture of online and face-to-face) programmes as the way to go — even though, in theory, some schools may be obliged to return to face-to-face teaching for some programmes, including MBAs, from next year.
Because of the pandemic and its aftermath, the Council on Higher Education (CHE) granted a temporary dispensation for schools registered as face-to-face providers to offer online teaching. That is due to end in 2026. According to Henley Business School Africa: “Should the dispensation end, we will need to return to all accredited classes being face to face.”
The CHE is expected to extend the dispensation, perhaps permanently, but Henley won’t be completely heartbroken if it doesn’t. It says: “For most of the personal mastery work that we do, we find it more effective when face to face. Classes are generally more engaged when students are together in a room as they don’t get screen fatigue or disturbed by things happening around them.”
The school adds: “That said, we have seen great success with our virtual programmes.”
Local market research for this cover story shows that after a rapid shift to online education in the immediate Covid aftermath, the pace of change has slowed considerably.
Wits Business School says schools need to be flexible: “Offering multiple delivery modes, each with distinct advantages, is not just about convenience. It’s about expanding access, enhancing impact and meeting students where they are.”
Nelson Mandela University Business School plans to move from face-to-face and online synchronous teaching to a hybrid and online asynchronous model. “This enables greater flexibility, allowing busy executives to engage in high-impact learning without as many constraints in terms of time, location or travel.”
Besides teaching formats, schools also differ in subject preferences. As the accompanying tables show, traditional subjects such as management, leadership and personal development still hold sway in the overall executive education world, but some schools have carved out specialist niches.
And while a number provide very little outside the physical or virtual classroom, others offer students access to a much broader range of activities, including climate leadership initiatives, entrepreneurship academies, high school learnership development, environmental activism and participation in national and international policy discussions.
We may be at the bottom tip of Africa, but South Africans have a wide range of credible business schools to choose from — several with international accreditation and all meeting strict higher education standards.
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Would-be students from other Sub-Saharan African countries are not so lucky. With a handful of exceptions, most of those countries offer limited access to high-quality executive education. That is why so many African companies send their managers and executives to South Africa for training. Even Nigeria, which has its own internationally accredited business school and access to other respected schools in West Africa, is a major customer of South African institutions.
South African schools are among the main drivers of efforts to raise the overall quality of business education across the continent. They insist they will succeed, but experience suggests it won’t happen quickly. They have many years of lucrative African business to look forward to before it does.
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