Business school heads vow to fight axing of MBA apprenticeship

The heads of major British organization colleges have vowed to thwart federal government plans to axe the MBA apprenticeship by splitting the examine into two, with the bulk nonetheless becoming included by the training programme.

Apprenticeships for senior executives have mushroomed next federal government reforms to expertise funding that forced companies with annual payrolls better than £3m to established apart an equivalent to .five for each cent of this sum for investing on office training schemes.

Unhappiness that levy cash were being becoming used in this way, on programmes costing up to £18,000, prompted education secretary Gavin Williamson to search for a evaluation into the MBA apprenticeship with an eye to eradicating it from the levy program.

Professor David Oglethorpe, dean of Cranfield © University of Sheffield

The Division for Instruction has not nonetheless formally scrapped the MBA apprenticeship. But in the most current record of apprenticeship standards issued by the administering agency, the requirement to get an MBA or other masters diploma to entire a senior chief qualification has been slice.

Nevertheless, David Oglethorpe, dean of Cranfield university’s college of administration, informed the Monetary Moments that his establishment would proceed to give an MBA whatsoever the outcome of the evaluation.

Below Mr Oglethorpe’s proposal, learners would entire a senior chief apprenticeship and then undertake an added piece of coursework and shell out an added cost to get an MBA. Some learners may have to shell out this charge, which could be up to £9,000, by themselves but it would nonetheless only be a portion of the overall cost.

“I have been fighting tooth and nail to say leave it as it is, but this suggests we could nonetheless give the qualification,” Mr Oglethorpe claimed.

“The opinions we get from companies is that it will help them entice and retain important staff members. A fifth of our consumption arrive from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and 15 for each cent experienced never been to university before setting up the programme.”

“The senior chief apprenticeship regular has been mapped on to an MBA curriculum, earning it easy for us to give an MBA for those that would like one particular,” Mr Oglethorpe claimed. “We would have to demarcate the two skills but that is reasonably straightforward to do.”

This way of funding an MBA has pros, Mr Oglethorpe additional. “Whilst the qualification remains element of an apprenticeship regular, you simply cannot inquire workforce to add to the value. If you could, it would indicate they would have pores and skin in the recreation.”

Other organization college heads claimed they were being looking at equivalent preparations if the federal government determined to take away the MBA from apprenticeships.

“The MBA is observed as a substantial detail on a CV so there will normally be an incentive to give a route to getting this via the apprenticeship,” John Board, dean of Henley Organization Faculty.

“The bigger threat is that the federal government cuts the cost companies have to shell out for the apprenticeship, which would no lengthier make it viable for colleges like us to give our program. You would then be still left with providers who only shell out lip provider to the standards essential for high-high-quality administration training.”

The idea of offering an MBA independently to the apprenticeship also obtained the backing of the Chartered Management Institute, the accreditation human body for administration education in the British isles.

“It would established a unusual precedent if the federal government claimed that companies simply cannot shell out for their workforce to examine for this qualification if that is what they want to do,” Daisy Hooper, the CMI’s head of coverage and community affairs, claimed.

“The apprenticeship levy has broadened obtain to the MBA. Proscribing this will go it back to becoming an elitist qualification.”

The Division for Instruction claimed: “The education secretary questioned the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technological Instruction to evaluation the senior chief apprenticeships regular to ensure it is meeting its aims and supplies price for dollars. The evaluation is ongoing.”