MBA a smorgasbord

SIR — Dave Reynell’s criticisms of the MBA (MBA no magic wand, October 6) refer. He says the MBA “does not turn aspiring young graduates into financial whiz-kids”.

That’s because it’s not designed to. It is a course in business administration, not finance or economics or any other specific discipline, including, surprisingly, administration.

This is one of its major weaknesses. The typical MBA has no serious disciplinary core: it’s a smorgasbord without any strong analytical framework. It also fails to expose students to rigorous study of research methods and to sustained analytical writing.

Many MBAs were originally designed to give, for example, arts, science and law graduates a taste of commercial studies. They were postgraduate degrees in time but not in standard. Reading recent discussions over SA’s “new” MBA, I’m not sure that much has changed.

Dr Doug Blackmur West Beach