UJ’s College of Business and Economics offers transforming post-graduate courses

THE University of Johannesburg's (UJ) College of Business and Economics (CBE), set to elevate commerce professions in South Africa, was launched on 21 August 2017. The CBE comprises of six schools which serve 19 500 full-time students and a further 6 600 part-time continuing education students, totalling about 40% of UJ’s student enrolment. The CBE was formed by combining the innovative strengths of the Faculty of Economic and Financial Sciences and the Faculty of Management.

Prof Daneel van Lill, acting executive dean of the CBE, said, “The university has established itself as an institution of global excellence and world-class stature, while providing accessible higher education. The scale and accessibility of the UJ CBE highlights the university's drive to become an international university, with the vision to serve pan-African ideals.”

Core to the CBE will be its newly established Johannesburg Business School (JBS), which, at its inception, is one of the largest business schools in Africa, with over 6,000 students. Under the leadership of its senior director, Prof Lyal White, the JBS will develop successful African leaders and managers, with a focus on context, building on international networks and research collaborations to become the leading school of African management thinking and academic rigour.

The transformation of chartered accounting in South Africa is being driven by the CBE School of Accounting (SoA), headed by its senior director, Prof Amanda Dempsey. “The new structure enables the combination of substantial and well-established programmes, serving both the private and public sectors. We want to continue positioning our university as a centre of academic excellence, transforming professions and contributing to solving social and economic problems in our country. We balance shareholder interest with intellectually curricula and research that reflects on Africa.

“We are transforming professions not by default but by design – purposefully, deliberately, definitively - influencing the economic condition of our society. We are proud of the confirmation of UJ as a leader in transforming the Accounting profession in line with the national imperatives of addressing skills shortage and nation building. UJ is annually producing more than a fifth of all successful black candidate chartered accountants,” says Prof Dempsey.

Major national and international industry bodies, including SAICA, CIMA, ACCA, CISI, AAT and IEDC, accredit the School’s programmes.

Insight into markets facilitated by contextual knowledge and employment of information technology is the unique offering of the CBE School of Consumer Intelligence and Applied Information Systems (SCIIS), headed by its director, Prof Mercy Mpinganjira. The School strives to be at the forefront of analysing, predicting and setting business and consumer trends. The SCIIS already offers benchmark Honours programme in Marketing Management in South Africa and has strong industry partnerships with national and multi-national organisations.

The CBE School of Economics (SoE) is a leader in the fields of Competition and Regulation Economics, Industrial Policy, Local Economic Development and Financial Economics. The SoE hosts the South African Research Chairs Initiative Chair in Industrial Policy, the UN African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) programme, CCRED (the research Centre of Competition and Regulation Economics) and CENLED (the Centre for Local Economic Development). The SoE, headed by its director, Prof Hardus van Zyl, is ranked fifth in South Africa by the RePec academic rating system for Economics.

The CBE School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy (SPMGP) collaborates with a wide range of participants in African and South African developmental government processes. The SPMGP, headed by its director, Prof Christelle Auriacombe, has achieved national and international recognition as one of the most successful higher education and training institutions to build on best practices to improve governance and management capacity. The School provides customised professional development programmes in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

The CBE School of Tourism and Hospitality (STH), is rated 34th globally among 100 ranked institutions for research in Tourism and Hospitality Management, in the Shanghai Ranking's 2017 GRAS, the only South African and African university to be included. Director Dr Diane Abrahams heads the School.

Prof Van Lill concludes, “The interest of business leaders has shifted to some extent from BRICS to focus on future opportunities offered by India, Southeast Asia and Africa. It is anticipated that half of the global economic growth over the next decade will come from these regions. In this context, the UJ CBE is growing its footprint as a new-generation higher education provider, shaping the future.”