Two to become one
North-West University wants to merge its two business schools, at Potchefstroom and Mafikeng, into a single institution. The first step will be to combine their Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees.
The university is SA’s only one with two business schools. Potchefstroom caters mainly for the private sector and Mafikeng for government. Both offer a range of programmes and qualifications, including executive education and the MBA.
There has been talk for some years of bringing the schools together. The process has been hastened by Potchefstroom’s success last year in winning international accreditation for its MBA. Mafikeng’s programme is being redesigned to match and staff hope the two will be aligned by early 2016, when officials from the UK-based Association of MBAs (Amba), which accredited the Potchefstroom degree, arrive for a follow-up assessment.
Jan Meyer, acting director of the Mafikeng-based Graduate School of Business & Government Leadership, says: “From next year we will endeavour to comply with the Amba requirements.”
Meyer says it could take up to three years to merge the schools completely. “A structure is yet to be finalised, but suggestions are on the table.” One of the issues up for discussion will be a name for the unified school. Potchefstroom is the stronger brand, but North-West University may want to project its own identity.
Mafikeng, however, will continue to focus on the public sector.
Potchefstroom Business School director Tommy du Plessis says the existing situation of one university offering different MBAs needs simplifying. “It’s always been a problem that we have one university and two schools and two certificates. The Amba logo is on the Potchefstroom certificate but not on Mafikeng’s. Once it is on both, some market confusion will be taken out.”
A full merger will also allow North-West University to offer a better service to its home province. A combined school will have more academics and greater teaching capacity, says Du Plessis. It will also be able to offer common teaching through three campuses. Potchefstroom already has its home town as well as Vanderbijlpark. He hopes eventually the university will also find a site in Rustenburg.
The planned merger has one downside for Potchefstroom: the school has deferred plans for its own, standalone campus on the edge of the university. “It would be selfish to spend R80m there and not at the other two campuses,” says Du Plessis.