CEIBS Goes on the Road

 

By Charmaine N. Clarke

Grandmothers with bound feet posing for photos at the tourist sites, transportation by donkey-driven cart, and children dressed in the traditional costumes of the local ethnic minority groups. Such are the images that strike visitors from China’s urban areas when they journey to the Yunnan Province city of Kunming or other cities in the nation’s remote Western or Central provinces. For anyone visiting from Shanghai or Beijing, the contrast is evident the moment you leave the airport and drive through town.

With this disparity in mind, CEIBS is now embarking on a programme that will bring world-class business management training directly to China’s disadvantaged regions. The school is now preparing to launch a management training programme in Kunming as well as Hefei, Anhui Province and Harbin, Heilongjiang Province. The goal of the EU-China Business Development Certificate Programme (BDCP) is to train 360 executives and entrepreneurs in these three remote cities by 2012. The programme will begin in Hefei in early 2009, then expand to Harbin and Kunming. The 6-month-long programmes, taught by professors from CEIBS and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, will consist of nine programmes of six four-day modules.

"We want to take CEIBS to them, which means the number of people who will benefit from this world-class quality, business and management education is going to be much wider,” says CEIBS Professor of Economics Bala Ramasamy. Prof. Ramasamy is project manager for the entire BMT grant project. 

The BDCP will provide hands-on, practical training for entrepreneurs, mid-level managers, and SME executives. Participants will pay a minimal fee of EUR500, as opposed to a full scholarship - a move designed to ensure that participants are "dedicated to the outcomes of the programme,” says Prof. Ramasamy.

In promoting the programme, CEIBS hopes in particular to attract alumni based in Western and Central China to enrol their staff members in the courses. Says Prof. Ramasamy: “This programme is an opportunity for CEIBS alumni with subsidiaries and branches in the inland provinces, to provide their young talent with the same quality of training that they received at our Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen campuses.”

WHAT’S IN THE EUROPE-CHINA BUSINESS MANAGEMENT PROJECT FOR YOU? FIND OUT ONLINE
CEIBS alumni and students stand to benefit from many of the programmes launched this year as part of the BMT Project.  To keep track of all scholarships, internships, and training programmes as well as events such as the EU-China Lecture Series and the upcoming EU Day Conference to be held on the Shanghai campus this September, please visit the new EU-China BMT Website at  www.ceibs.edu/bmt.


NEW MBA SCHOLARSHIPS

The BDCP is one of several methods CEIBS will use to support China’s national goal of reducing the economic and social disparities between the country’s regions and provinces. During the next five years, the school will launch more than a dozen programmes focused on the goal of delivering top quality business education to under-served regions or demographic groups within China.

Other components include offering 60 full- and partial-tuition scholarships -12 per year - allowing students lacking financial means to attend the CEIBS MBA Programme. “The objective of the scholarships is to allow people from the disadvantaged provinces, as defined by GDP per capita, to have access to world-class business education,” says Prof. Ramasamy. He explains that the 60 scholarships are aimed at leveling the playing field for students who lack access to academic training because of their geographical location and financial situation.

 During the current year, the criterion for scholarship recipients will be loosened to accept not only permanent residents of remote regions but also potential students who were born elsewhere but are now working in the inner regions of China. The criteria may be tightened in the future as the number of applicants increases.


EXPANDED EXCHANGE PROGRAMMES, INTERNSHIPS TO EUROPE

Other initiatives funded by the BMT Project include 100 exchange scholarships between Chinese students and their peers from b-schools in the EU’s 27 member countries. The first batch of CEIBS recipients will take up their scholarships this September. CEIBS students who wish to apply must first meet the general criteria to join in the exchange programme, then seek acceptance at one of the participating business schools in Europe, then apply for the BMT scholarship. “Ideally we want to give the scholarships to those students who qualify for the exchange, who have leadership skills but who would not be able to participate because of financial difficulties,” says Prof. Ramasamy.

In awarding the BMT Project to CEIBS, the European Union provided EUR7.6 million in funding, while contributions from CEIBS and its academic partners - European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, and IESE School of Business - pushed the figure to EUR10.1 million.  In November, funding from the Shanghai municipal government took the total to EUR18.25 million.