The Hindu Business Line : Universitas 21 Global launches online MBA programme

BY 2020, more than 100 million people will be seeking higher education courses and the only way to cater to this demand will be through eLearning programmes, according to Dr Jeremy Williams, Director of Instruction and Assessment, Associate Professor in eLearning, Universitas 21 Global. It is to meet this growing demand that Universitas 21 Global - a joint venture between Universitas 21 and Thomson Learning - is offering an online MBA programme, he explained.

The first batch for the course enrolled in July 2003. Describing the course as "truly global," Mr Williams said, here all three areas of the course - the students, the curriculum and the faculty - are from all over the world. "Even in our case studies, we reflect the experiences of companies from across the world," he said.

Universitas 21 Global, based in Singapore, has 16 partner members including universities such as McGill University (US), University of Birmingham (UK), University of Edinburgh (UK), University of Singapore, University of Melbourne and University of Queensland. Professors from all 16 universities set the course content. "It is a time consuming but the result is world class," according to Dr Williams. The programme also has a stringent faculty-training programme, which aims at quality control, he added.

The programme currently has 350 students from countries such as India, Singapore, UAE, the UK, the US, Australia, Russia, Tanzania, Canada and Malaysia who have enrolled for the course. Most of them are working professionals in their mid-30s, Dr Williams said.

The students have to cover 18 subjects with each subject taking about 12 weeks to complete. As it's an online course, there is flexibility in the time given to the students to complete the programme: from 18 months to five years.

Dr Williams, who's responsible for all aspects of instruction and assessment, said that online MBA programmes not only help in building friendships across the world but also in building business networks.

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