CRACKING AN OLD FAÇADE

Their image may be that of capitalist tools, but business schools insist they make a significant contribution to social and economic development

Cash cows or contributors to economic growth? Agents of positive change or perpetuators of outmoded ideas? Business schools have no doubt that they’re forces for good, but not everyone agrees.

A recent article in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper proposed that business schools everywhere be bulldozed. “There are 13,000 business schools around the world,” it said. “That’s 13,000 too many.”

The author, Bristol University management professor Martin Parker, says schools are so intent on earning revenue that they provide corporate clients and students with what they want, rather than what they need. They persist with comfortable, tried-andtested teaching matter and methods, as if the modern business world has not changed from decades ago.

Furthermore, they teach the old “me-first” model of capitalism. Parker writes that business schools are “places that teach people how to get money out of the pockets of ordinary people and keep it for themselves”.

Predictably, the article has earned scorn from the global schools community.

In SA, business-school academics say their institutions contribute to the growth and development of society as a whole. But does anyone notice?

Henley SA dean Jon Foster-pedley says: “Compare a school brochure today with one from 30 years ago and they are much the same. The message we’re putting out there does not reflect what we really do. SA schools are pushing boundaries and having an impact in all corners of SA, yet we maintain this elitist façade.”

Nicola Kleyn, dean of Pretoria University’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs), says: “Perhaps we shouldn’t be called business schools any more because that suggests we serve only capitalism.