Sim Shagaya saw the problem a decade ago. In 2014, when he was CEO of the Nigerian e-commerce platform Konga, Shagaya saw how almost 1.2 million candidates who sat for Nigerian university entry exams failed to gain admission, because the country’s 170 universities could only hold 1.8 million students. ‘The traditional method of brick-and-mortar universities cannot add-ress the demands of 50 million to 60 million Nigerians trying to get into tertiary institutions at the same time,’ Shagaya said in a TV interview. ‘We have to be able to use the internet somehow.’

So that’s what he did. In 2019 Shagaya launched uLesson, an edtech company that ultimately grew into Miva University – Nigeria’s first fully accredited private open university.

In its early days, uLesson produced thousands of short video lessons, delivered by human tutors for high school maths and science students. Instead of posting the lessons online, uLesson distributed the content via 32 GB and 64 GB memory cards. Then came COVID-19, and a rapid change of plans. uLesson now posts pre-recorded and live-streamed lessons via its website.

uLesson’s story is a good lesson for Africa’s schools, universities and business schools. Old delivery models no longer work, and even the new models need to be altered or updated to meet the challenges of a changing landscape.

The trouble is, many tertiary institutions around the world are slow to learn – and business schools especially are failing to make the grade.

‘Business schools have lost their way,’ Andrew J Hoffman writes in a recent Harvard Business Publishing article. ‘Students are schooled in a system that, having raised the standard of living for millions of people over centuries, is now facing systemic failures in both the environmental and social domains – failures that market forces cause and, as presently structured, cannot address. As a result, newly minted MBAs entering the business world have learnt a good number of outmoded, even discredited ideas, and they graduate ill-equipped to face the challenges of management in a world where business must be an integral player in solving humanity’s biggest problems.’

Hoffman’s assessment felt a lot like getting a note from a teacher saying, ‘please see me after class’. But he’s not alone. In an interview with the Financial Mail, Penny Law, director of South Africa’s Regenesys Business School, sounded a similar warning. ‘Traditional business schools are becoming obsolete because they are not responsive to the needs of the new digital world,’ she said. ‘Most are struggling and cannot survive in a free marketplace without government subsidies. Technology is disrupting business school education in a major way. People will not be paying astronomical fees for sub-standard education when they can get it at a fraction of the cost at new digital education institutions. Higher education is at the cusp of revolutionary change. Traditional and risk-averse brands will fall like dominoes within the next decade.’

The good news is, it’s not all bad news. Mark Smith, the former director of Stellenbosch Business School, describes the country’s business schools as ‘a rare example of a higher education success story’ in a country that not too long ago was the subject of a Times Higher Education feature titled, Are South African Universities Failing?

Writing for Times Higher Education, Smith notes that South Africa is a hub of home-grown management education on the African continent. ‘Individually and collectively, the schools are proud of this and have invested in international accreditation to maintain a place in the global market and ensure standards commensurate with the top schools worldwide,’ he writes. Smith goes on to point out that three of Africa’s four internationally triple-accredited business schools are in South Africa, along with eight of the 12 African schools accredited by AMBA, the English MBA accreditation body.

How, then, is business education changing to meet the evolving demands of students and professionals? In Africa, as in other regions, it starts not with getting students to school, but with taking school to the students.

Flex MBAs are a growing trend. These part-time programmes enable students to study online for the first half of the programme, with the option of either continuing the course remotely or attending classes in person. Many are opting for the online option.

Thomas Seidl, a data science manager at Red Bull Soccer who lives in Munich, Germany, told the Financial Times about his experiences with the Flex MBA at University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. ‘Most of the top-flight business schools are located in the US, but moving my wife and two young kids to California would have been a major disruption,’ he said. ‘The programme at Berkeley Haas was ideal because we did not have to rearrange our lives.’

Seidl’s story is becoming more and more common. According to the US Graduate Management Admission Council, 41% of full-time, residential MBA courses saw an increase in applications in 2023, compared to 60% of MBA courses that offer online, hybrid, weekend and evening formats.

‘For the part-time MBA programme, we have an overwhelming demand,’ Jens Wüstemann, president of Germany’s Mannheim Business School told the Financial Times. ‘That is driven by the fact that companies don’t want to lose their high-potential employees in a tight labour market.’

While online learning gives established professionals access to business education while helping them avoid relocating (and helping their employers retain their talent), it’s also enabling students at the start of their careers to get their feet in the educational door.

In June 2024 Nigerian edtech start-up Harde Business School announced that it’s building an online open university to help solve Africa’s educational challenges. ‘These challenges include limited admission capacity across all tertiary institutions, a curriculum disconnected from industry needs leading to increasing unemployment rates, and inconsistent university calendars due to frequent strikes by unions,’ Harde co-founder Dami Oguntunde told Disrupt Africa.

Like Sim Shagaya, Oguntunde saw the imbalance between the volumes of hopeful applicants who wrote the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) – the entrance exam for Nigeria’s tertiary institutions – and the number of seats available at the country’s universities.

‘We had observed that of the 2 million students who write JAMB on an annual basis, only 600 000 of them can be assimilated into the traditional tertiary institutions in Nigeria, including polytechnics and colleges of education,’ said Oguntunde.

‘This is primarily due to the limited admission capacity and infrastructure deficiency. This leaves over 70% of students disenfranchised, and unable to access quality post-secondary education. This number keeps compounding every year.’

If accessibility is one challenge, then affordability is another. Again, African business schools are responding with flexible offerings. Henley Business School, which is part of the University of Reading, marked the first African intake for its part-time, 24-month global MBA programme this year. This follows the rapid growth of its flexible MBA in South Africa, where it has an established market presence.

‘African students will now be able to get a global qualification from a top-ranked international business school without the need to relocate overseas,’ says Jon Foster-Pedley, dean and director of Henley Business School Africa. ‘What’s more, the degree has been priced for the local market. Students can enrol via our Joburg campus at around 70% of the cost of enrolling in the same degree in the UK.’

‘The undeniable advantage of online learning lies in its clear accessibility,’ says Tebogo Moleta, founder of Think Tank. ‘Unlike traditional universities with limited spaces and stringent requirements, online platforms offer an abundance of knowledge and skill-based courses covering diverse fields.’

As Moleta lists the advantages of online learning in general, he sums up the state of business education in Africa. It’s a space that’s being transformed by digital delivery systems that make learning more affordable and more accessible to more students across the continent. Crucially, those online solutions are giving students something they’ve been lacking – choice.

‘Being able to pick and choose from industry-aligned educational resources is an immediate solution that ensures that learners can be equipped with the skills currently demanded by the job market,’ says Moleta ‘This translates to relevance, heightens their chances of employability and creates more opportunities for the entrepreneurial spirit to shine through.’

By Mark van Dijk
Images: iStock