A New Curriculum For Business
We are working to construct a new curriculum for undergraduate business training, which will sit at the heart of the new education project we are pursuing.
The key premises are simple:
1. We don't see undergraduate business training simply as a mini-MBA. Rather, this is an opportunity to situate business in the wider context of social life and knowledge. The students, rather than thinking 'everything is business', should understand the different domains - family, community life and government - in their own variety and complexity.
2. Accordingly, this training is less about 'how to' than 'why' and 'what' of business life and career. The undergraduate students, who still have many important life decisions ahead of them, would need this broader perspective than the graduate students who may have already made their choice.
3. Additionally, we shall put a great emphasis on the emerging realities of the business - the disruption of business as usual with new technologies, new ways of doing things with increasing global integration and the new realisation that our resources are not infinite - because the undergraduate students, again in contrast with graduate students, need to apply their knowledge and skills well into the future.
Indeed, we are not trying to build an elite business school. Our idea is to create a school of middle income, middle ability individuals, who are both most ignored and the most numerous among all the segments in search of education innovation. It is somehow assumed that the existing, dated, public provisions are enough to serve their needs, and the private education companies would deliberately stay away and serve the High-fliers or the stragglers instead. The reasons for this are clear: The middle segment is the mainstream, a game for the incumbents. However, this is not a normal time: This is a time when the Great Recession is wrecking a havoc of mainstream jobs, careers and ideas of life. This is that sort of time when the solidity of mainstream breaks down, and new pioneers emerge in their middle. This is the modern equivalent of potato famine which will make a land-locked Irish farmer board a ship to an unknown land with no promises of return.
Another pioneer metaphor: I see this new business training as equivalent to 'pickaxes during a gold rush'. This is the skill people need now. Let's face it: There is no promise of a stable job in a stable company does not exist anymore. Today, it is all about search and develop after one steps out of college. You can indeed still strike gold, but you need an education that teaches you how to. What good is spending a lot of time on knowing a trade with a last century perspective when that does not exist anymore. It is so simple even the mainstream seems to get it now.
This new approach to training is, as I mentioned earlier, at the core of our new E-School. This is about creating your opportunities rather than just following the footsteps of someone ahead. We want to bring together three great disruptions of our age - technology, globalization and ecological concerns - inside our classroom, and train a new generation of entrepreneurs, innovators and dreamers who will create the possibility and lead their communities. It is a willful departure from the employability tune that colleges love to sing, even when it is only a fairy-tale promise that if you do your CV right, you will get a job: There are not enough jobs out there and all we are selling in its name is snake-oil. We need a new generation of people who push the boundaries of possibility and create new wealth, not just in money terms but in terms of ideas and linkages: The curriculum we are putting our time in developing is focused on nothing but the realities of this brave new world.
The key premises are simple:
1. We don't see undergraduate business training simply as a mini-MBA. Rather, this is an opportunity to situate business in the wider context of social life and knowledge. The students, rather than thinking 'everything is business', should understand the different domains - family, community life and government - in their own variety and complexity.
2. Accordingly, this training is less about 'how to' than 'why' and 'what' of business life and career. The undergraduate students, who still have many important life decisions ahead of them, would need this broader perspective than the graduate students who may have already made their choice.
3. Additionally, we shall put a great emphasis on the emerging realities of the business - the disruption of business as usual with new technologies, new ways of doing things with increasing global integration and the new realisation that our resources are not infinite - because the undergraduate students, again in contrast with graduate students, need to apply their knowledge and skills well into the future.
Indeed, we are not trying to build an elite business school. Our idea is to create a school of middle income, middle ability individuals, who are both most ignored and the most numerous among all the segments in search of education innovation. It is somehow assumed that the existing, dated, public provisions are enough to serve their needs, and the private education companies would deliberately stay away and serve the High-fliers or the stragglers instead. The reasons for this are clear: The middle segment is the mainstream, a game for the incumbents. However, this is not a normal time: This is a time when the Great Recession is wrecking a havoc of mainstream jobs, careers and ideas of life. This is that sort of time when the solidity of mainstream breaks down, and new pioneers emerge in their middle. This is the modern equivalent of potato famine which will make a land-locked Irish farmer board a ship to an unknown land with no promises of return.
Another pioneer metaphor: I see this new business training as equivalent to 'pickaxes during a gold rush'. This is the skill people need now. Let's face it: There is no promise of a stable job in a stable company does not exist anymore. Today, it is all about search and develop after one steps out of college. You can indeed still strike gold, but you need an education that teaches you how to. What good is spending a lot of time on knowing a trade with a last century perspective when that does not exist anymore. It is so simple even the mainstream seems to get it now.
This new approach to training is, as I mentioned earlier, at the core of our new E-School. This is about creating your opportunities rather than just following the footsteps of someone ahead. We want to bring together three great disruptions of our age - technology, globalization and ecological concerns - inside our classroom, and train a new generation of entrepreneurs, innovators and dreamers who will create the possibility and lead their communities. It is a willful departure from the employability tune that colleges love to sing, even when it is only a fairy-tale promise that if you do your CV right, you will get a job: There are not enough jobs out there and all we are selling in its name is snake-oil. We need a new generation of people who push the boundaries of possibility and create new wealth, not just in money terms but in terms of ideas and linkages: The curriculum we are putting our time in developing is focused on nothing but the realities of this brave new world.
Comments
Very interesting. I would add bringing Ethics further in the curriculum and also discuss different types of business; from the small family business, to the SME up to 50 people to managing an organization of 100,000 people. I would also add some not so traditional business topics in the curriculum, such as the Arts.
A small observation, I did not find myself feeling comfortable reading the characterization of "middle ability individuals". For all sorts of different reasons (paedagogical, marketing etc) I would not try like a School to position its desired students like that. Just my view.
Thanks and points taken.
I get your point on 'Middle Ability' bit as well. I agree that I should refrain from using the term 'middle ability', which do not portray the desired student profile correctly.
For us, it is about opening up opportunities beyond the students in the top percentile. Top students anywhere in the world have all the options, as all of the world's best institutions want them. We want to be about making good education available to the rest.
However, we wouldn't want to be non-selective, and trying to give degrees to anyone. I have seen the dangers of that, from inside a For-Profit college in Britain.
Supriyo
Been in use in Many multi national and International firms for alst 30 years.
Brain based learning and humanistic models will propel you to the knowledge economy and quantum economy.
These new models are fantastic.
Dr Libyan Labiosa Cassone
USA