MBA programmes and private sector needs

Not a few owners and Chief Executive Officers of business houses in Guyana have complained from time to time about the challenges which they face in running their enterprises respectively in the face of a scarcity of skills, particularly though not exclusively at the senior management level.  In fact, this newspaper recalls that a few years ago when we posed the question to the Chief Executive Officer of Neal and Massy regarding what he felt was the single greatest challenge facing the business community in Guyana he responded, seemingly, without even thinking about it that in his opinion it was the flight of skills and the vacuum which it left in the local workforce.

During a much more recent interview, Dr Brian O’Toole, the Director of Nations University as well as the privately-run School of the Nations expressed the view that the challenge of ensuring that local institutions- both public and private sector – have access to adequate skills to ensure the efficiency and profitability of their organizations – lay, to a large extent, with our local institutions of learning. In fact, what has become increasingly apparent is that some owners and managers of small and medium-sized enterprises are not, themselves, adequately business-trained and what that sometimes means is that their deficiencies are reflected in the performance of their enterprises. One should hasten to add, of course, that sustained exposure to the particular challenges of doing business in Guyana can sometimes be as good as formal training. Still, there are aspects of administration of businesses that require the application of particular methodologies and those, unquestionably, are taught disciplines.

The idea of developing collaborative links between the University of Guyana and the private sector in order to enable the latter to invest in a university curriculum that is responsive to their human resource needs has been mooted from time to time on both sides. The most recent initiative of this kind coincided roughly with the arrival in Guyana of the current Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Professor Lawrence Carrington. If both the University and the private sector appeared animated about the idea it seems unlikely to work in the short term if only because Professor Carrington now has his hands filled with issues that appear fundamental to the very continuity of UG.

First the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business and, more recently, Nations University in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Business Administration have launched courses of study leading to a Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA) in Guyana. Both academic institutions have, not surprisingly, engaged in serious consultations with the private sector since, given its oft-expressed concerns about skills shortages, one expects that the business community would have more than a passing interest in what the two institutions have to offer.

Both institutions have said that their MBA programmes are contextually structured to fit into a local context so that research and case study assignments will take on a Guyana orientation and students will benefit from discourses and exchanges with experienced local captains of industry who will presumably discuss with them, among other things some of the anomalies and rough and tumble of doing business in Guyana.

The fact that such programmes are now being offered here in Guyana creates a significant cost-saving option. Current research suggests that the MBA is one of the most sought-after qualifications in the world and as such the programme can cost students amounts ranging from $US25,000 – $US100,000. Both the Arthur Lok Jack School of Business Programme and now the one being offered by Nations University are considerably cheaper. In fact, the latter costs less than $US6,000 which, if the quality assurances offered by the University can be guaranteed would, contextually, make it a “steal.”

From all reports, sections of the private sector have been responding well to these initiatives and some private sector business managers have said that courses such as management, marketing and Business Law which are customarily part of MBA programmes will be invaluable to the strengthening of their own enterprises.

We expect, of course, that at some stage, the level of collaboration between the business sector and our indigenous University of Guyana will improve to the point where it too can help infuse those needed skills into the private sector. While it has to be said that the support  which the University receives from GT&T and other companies is commendable, what is clearly needed is the development of a relationship between the university and the private sector at a level which has now become par for the course in other countries. In the meantime we must hope that the efforts of institutions like Arthur Lok Jack and Nations University meet with both the expectations and the requirements of the private sector.