Business schools are trying new strategies to reverse the flight of students and attract more talent

From South Africa to Kenya, Senegal and Tunisia, numbers of business school students have been increasing exponentially, albeit from a low base. The directors of these schools are trying new strategies to attract the best teachers who can help to mould the best students in order to raise their international profile and fight the flight of African students and professionals to the West in the phenomenon known as the ‘brain drain’.


The numbers of students graduating from Kenya’s top business schools have doubled each year over the last five years, from about 400 per year in 2003 to more than 2,000 in 2008 from a population of about 100,000 university students. Nairobi’s US International University School of Business’ current cohort of MBA students is 1,200 alone. Likewise, South African universities are taking in more than 4,000 MBA students each year. 


African business schools see themselves as part of an overall solution to boost growth in the continent and thus encourage those in the diaspora to return and those who are contemplating a move abroad to stay, study and work in Africa.


Most studies suggest that improving both job markets and the quality of education in African countries is the key to getting young trained people to stay in Africa, and this implies that it is better to concentrate on strengthening future capacity than to chase after those who have already left. Although the credit crunch and recessions in Europe and the US may get people thinking about the business opportunities in Africa, there are few prospects of seeing many who had left return.


Building bridges


Kofi Anani of the World Bank’s African diaspora department notes that Ghana is training 150 new doctors each year and then losing 120 to migration. But for the business sector, the issue seems to be much more that African students go abroad for school and then do not return. The Bank and the AU have signed a five-year partnership agreement in order to better understand and engage with the diaspora, hoping to use knowledge gained abroad for Africa’s development. 


The number of graduates from African business schools suggests that the tide may be turning. In order to boost student numbers, schools are diversifying their course offerings, attempting to appeal to both full-time students seeking a degree to improve their job prospects and executives studying part-time who look to develop more sector-specific skills. That often requires greater co-operation from the private sector and forging relationships with key businesses.


Budding relationships between business schools and businesses have been built up in various ways, be it through the class visits of Lagos Business School (LBS) students to the businesses of alumni or the bringing-in of CEOs from top regional businesses like Safaricom and Kenya Airways to help build up African case studies that can be used in business education across the continent. Governments also want expertise from business training institutions; Nigeria’s Public Sector Reform Bureau agreed in July to bring in experts from LBS to help bring the best of business practice to Nigerian government.


Educating and keeping more students in Africa is not a question of numbers alone. Board member of the Association of African Business Schools (AABS) Jonathan Cook argues that Africa is still “under-served” in terms of quality business schools. The AABS, an association of 17 of some of Africa’s top business schools, is working to meet that lack by improving standards. From May 2008, the AABS has increased its membership criteria so as to push schools in the direction of employing more staff holding PhDs and producing more published research.


In a sector where reputation counts, schools cannot afford to sacrifice small class sizes and quality for higher revenues and larger numbers of students. Schools across Africa have started to increase their fees in order both to attract a higher quality of student and to be able to afford more experienced teachers. At Kenya’s few private universities, yearly tuition fees are well over $6,000 (which is still well out of reach of many) and rising.


Talented teachers


Business schools need to find ways to attract the best teaching talent in order to develop their reputations and this creates competition with the private sector. People with business training and ideas can often make a great deal more money running their own businesses or working for multinational companies. The same principle applies in terms of facilities; central Nairobi is beginning to develop its own university district off the aptly named University Way, where business and other schools are jostling for space. 


Winning full international accreditation – as very few business schools have yet done – is one way of bringing African business education to the level of international standards. And as new generations of students are trained and graduate, schools want them to think of their legacy to the institution. In order to give the institution its own firm footing aside from non-existent government support and student fees, the LBS may well be the first African business school to set up its own endowment and development fund. In late October, alumni association president Babatunde Dabiri announced the creation of the endowment in order to support the growth of the school’s infrastructure and to help improve its ranking amongst global business schools.