The South African MBA Review and the Principles of Efficient Regulation

Abstract

The South African Council on Higher Education (CHE) has developed a model to regulate the provision of postgraduate qualifications. This model was applied in the first instance to the MBA. Accreditation was withdrawn from 15 MBAs, 15 were granted conditional accreditation, and seven were fully accredited. This paper takes forward an earlier evaluation and argues that the CHE did not observe the internationally recognized principles and processes of efficient regulation. Its regulation of MBAs is a paradigm case of failure in public policy construction and implementation. The consequences may extend beyond those immediately affected by the CHE’s decisions to impact adversely on South Africa’s regulatory reputation.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges with gratitude the assistance and advice of Gina Verberne. Significant debts are also owed to the Journal’s referees, and to participants in seminars conducted in 2004 at the Department of Management, University of the Western Cape; the Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria; the South African Human Sciences Research Council; the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) at the University of Twente in the Netherlands; and to participants in the higher education stream at the African Evaluation Society International Conference which was held in Cape Town in December 2004. A version of this paper was presented to the INQAAHE Conference which was held in Wellington, 29 March‐1 April, 2005, and I am grateful for responses received there. I am also deeply indebted to Dr David Woodhouse, Australian Universities Quality Agency and to Dr Jeroen Huisman, CHEPS, for their incisive comments on the earlier version of this paper ^[4] . The usual caveats apply. This paper does not represent the views, opinions or policies of the University of the Western Cape, or any other person or organisation. The author accepts complete responsibility for all errors.

Notes

[1] Universities seem also to have been favoured over the then technikons through Department of Education/CHE policies that raised the regulatory compliance costs of the latter with respect to their international qualifications’ partnerships (CHE, 2004i, pp. 33–34).

[2] The market is, in fact, properly defined independent of any equity considerations: it can operate in the context of any distribution of income, equitable or not. Conceptually it is also perfectly possible for a market that functions initially in a highly inequitable situation to do so in a way that reduces the degree of inequality.

[3] ‘Satisfice’ is a term used in economics to indicate a departure from maximizing behaviour. It means to seek an acceptable result that is ‘satisfactory’, rather than the absolute best.

[4] CHE was formally asked to assist the research for this paper but refused to answer any of the questions put to it. CHE was also asked to facilitate a workshop at which an earlier version of this paper could have been discussed with, and critically assessed by, its professional staff. This was also refused.