Link-up with MIT Sloan boosts international MBA intake on mainland

Growing numbers of international students are signing up for MBA programmes at elite mainland universities following dramatic changes to their business schools under a partnership with the MIT Sloan School of Management of the United States.

Tsinghua University in Beijing, Fudan University in Shanghai and Sun Yat-sen University's Lingnan (University) College in Guangzhou have all set up International MBA programmes with support from the MIT-China Management Education Project.

For more than a decade, the project has been helping the universities switch their business schools from traditional chalk and talk to a more empirical approach involving case studies, a key element of most MBA programmes in the US. The programmes are all taught in English.

More than 200 professors from Tsinghua, Fudan and Lingnan have trained at MIT Sloan since the partnership was formed in 1996. MIT professors also give lectures and seminars on the mainland.

David Schmittlein, professor of marketing at MIT Sloan, said that five years ago the three institutions along with the business schools of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Peking University could attract only a handful of international students. But now all five are becoming forces to be reckoned with and together have enrolled about 1,000 students from around the world.

'Over the last 10 years, in fits and starts, business schools at traditional universities in China have been making great strides in terms of faculty, the kinds of programmes they run, and teaching methodology,' Schmittlein said. 'They are no longer distant ivory towers. They have become closer to business. They use case discussions, and they use projects.'

A spokesman for MIT Sloan said the changes at the business schools had helped them attract more students from abroad. About 45 per cent of students on Tsinghua's IMBA are international students.