USB again ranked as continent’s top business school

This is the fifth consecutive year that the honour has been bestowed on USB

THE University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) has for the ninth consecutive year been ranked as one of the Top 3 excellent business schools in Africa.

It is the first ‘African-born’ school to be triple accredited and, for each ranking, USB has received Eduniversal’s Five Palmes award. This places the school among the top 100 business schools in the world.

The award is based on the Eduniversal global survey. The rankings are the result of voting by deans of business schools around the world, based on a list of criteria.

USB director Prof Piet Naudé said: “In the academic environment, we work on the basis of peer review. This is a rigorous form of quality assurance. “The fact that such a large proportion of business school deans around the globe rated USB so highly fills us with humility and gratitude.”

Naudé added that the ranking confirms USB's standing on the African continent. “This we will use to play an empowering role in South Africa and on the rest of the continent.

“We are indeed proud to be an African business school of global repute,” he said.

Late last year USB was also ranked as the top business school by employers participating in the Professional Management Review (PMR. africa) 2016 survey – with a score even higher than the previous two years.

This is the fifth consecutive year that the honour has been bestowed on the USB in the annual PMR survey of accredited business schools offering MBA degrees in South Africa.

“No doubt, companies and employers in the public sector agree that we are on the right track with our mission to shape responsible business leaders,” Naudé said about this achievement.

The business school’s MBA graduates and students received a scoring of 8.22 out of a possible 10.00 from employers – an improvement on last year’s 8.16 and 8.00 in 2014.

Participating in the survey were more than 300 human resource directors or managers and line managers of listed and large companies, national, provincial and local government departments, municipalities and State Owned Enterprises.

Martin Butler, head of the MBA programme at USB, added that they have seen a remarkable growth in MBA enrolment.

“The consistent growth is largely due to the acceptance of employers of the valuable asset such graduates are for organisations and the return-on-investment experienced by students.

“The world of business is forever growing and reaching new heights of complexity and the demand for skilled, creative and ethical leaders with a global outlook will never go out of fashion.

“In fact, for businesses to survive in a competitive landscape of evolving consumer behaviour, global expansion and economic strain, a strong well-educated leader is crucial.”