THE China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)is offering Nigerian business executives seekingto take their careers to a top level, an executive MBA programme with learning models, which it described as suitable for Africa.Executive Director of CEIBS, Africa, Prof. Kwaku Atuahene-Gima,who was in Nigeria, recently disclosed that while the school's biggest market is expected from Nigeria, a lot of challenges confronting African economies could be solved creatively.On the problems in the education sector, he was of the opinion that African governments were yet to consider education more as a business. 'Education should be taken with the same approach to technology. Nigerian students are leaving the country to study in other parts of the world. There is a market out there if only the government can create an educational hub to attract the best of education into the country.'According to him, 'the programme has been designed for passionate and ambitious executives, who are ready to advance their careers and progress of their organisation through creativity and innovation.'Set up in 1994 as a joint venture between the European Commission and the Chinese government, he noted that CEIBShas risen to become one of the top business schools in the world with campuses in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen and Ghana.He said, 'according to the Financial Times of London ranking, we are number 8. No African business school is ranked among the first 200. Our Executive Development programme is ranked number 19th and our MBA is ranked number 22 in the world.In the 17 years since its launch, the professor of Innovation explained that the CEIBS has solidified its reputation as the leading international business school in Asia.He observed, 'business schools should not be blamed for organisations' economic challenges. We do make significant contribution to managing the economy because without managerial skills, no firm can prosper. Of course, there are problems as business schools are part of the society and they make mistakes like anybody else, but they try to rectify the mistakes as they go along.'One of the problems we have found during the recent economic crisis is the fact that, probably, we have been neglecting the areas of ethics, governance and similar issues. Hence, we have decided to include programmes like that in our courses to make sure that business is not all about money, it is also about society, ethics and governance'.Citing China as a model, he said, ' about 40 years ago, China was nowhere. But now, China is one of the biggest economies in the world. They were able to achieve this because there are stronger entrepreneurs, managers that are able to manage these firms springing up all over China.'As a business school, we have been able to integrate the Chinese ways of doing business with the Western way of doing business and brought about a programme that has made a strong contribution to developing the mindset, processes and approaches that the Chinese are using to not only manage business in China but compete with international firms.
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