Executive education in Jordan has yet to become a staple of academic institutions, but the country’s accelerating integration into the global economy means that ambitious Jordanians increasingly have to be on the lookout for the competitive advantages offered by focused higher degrees. Faced with more competition, one way for the young Jordanian executive to keep up is through a mid-career boost from a small but growing number of master of business administration (MBA) and similar courses. Particularly innovative is the new MBA degree offered by the German-Jordan University (GJU) at its Talal Abu-Ghazaleh College of Business (TAG CB) in Amman. Established in 2006 as one of the faculties of the new university, TAG CB represents an education partnership rare in the Arab world between academe and the region’s private sector, bringing the expertise of the Abu-Ghazaleh business consulting and services group to the GJU. The latter, a public university jointly launched in 2004 by the German and Jordanian governments, is headquartered in Amman and plans to open branches in various other Arab cities.

Designed as a passport to a higher management career for ambitious young executives, the GJU MBA program enforces the concept of transferring knowledge from classes into real-world workplaces. Normally, students in this program will have qualified some three to five years previously with a Bachelor’s degree and then gone on to perform well and show leadership at work. In a sign of the times, GJU points out that its MBA graduates could go on to serve as effective managers not only in the private sector, but also in business aspects of government or other public agencies. Though not at the level of Dubai and other high-flying economies where state offices often function as smoothly as private business, Jordan’s public sector is nevertheless moving in that direction — helped by a growing number of bright young graduates of executive education programs. In particular, GJU allows its MBA students to specialize in such areas as finance, statistics, marketing, or international business, not to mention the Abu-Ghazaleh specialties of Intellectual Property and Accounting.

More specialized, but still aimed at the executive, is the MBA offered by Jordan’s Queen Nour Civil Aviation Technical College. Established in 1973 and recently privatized, the college meets Jordanian and regional civil aviation needs through a two year program leading to a community college diploma, as well as by special training. However, in the process of upgrading and revamping its offering, eight years ago the college started an MBA in Aviation Management. Designed for high-flyers, as it were, Jordanians and students from elsewhere in the region have benefited from this course, helping their respective airlines compete an increasingly sophisticated and vital sector.

Finally, for Jordan’s finest young executives, the Queen Rania Global Leader Scholarship is offered annually by the famed Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona. The scholarship goes to Jordanian business leaders interested in pursuing an MBA in global management. Candidates for the award must have a minimum of two years’ work experience and they have to be motivated by factors other than personal advancement. In fact, applicants for this MBA scholarship must submit an essay on how they intend to use their education to make a positive contribution to their nation, region and/or the world community. Jordan’s Queen Rania promotes the award saying that empowering women is, “perhaps, the single greatest legacy we can bestow upon our children.” Although in the age of gender equality, men are also eligible for this prestigious MBA scholarship. Look for more of these initiatives in Jordan, as well as an expansion of home-grown MBAs, over the next few years.

“Every degree becomes obsolete five years down the line, so you have to renew your knowledge,” said Assaad Raphael, chairman and general manager of Porsche Center Lebanon. This is why Raphael returned to his Alma Mater, the American University of Beirut (AUB), for the Executive MBA (EMBA) program last year. The 20-month program meets every three weeks for a three-day weekend: Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings.

“I know that this program added value to my role at my company,” Raphael said. He was quick to point out that a major benefit was the ability to learn from the experiences of his classmates, who came from all over the region. “Fully 50 percent of my classmates were commuting in from outside of Lebanon,” he added. According to AUB’s Olayan School of Business (OSB), which hosts the program in addition to their MBA, typically half of EMBA students are residents of Lebanon. Of the others 14% are Saudi, 12% Kuwaiti, 9% Qatari, 5% Emirati and 5% are even residents of Europe.

Student ages vary as well, asserted the EMBA Program Director Riad Dimechkie. “We aim at executives and those aspiring to be executives,” he said. Thus participant age varies from 30 to 60 years, although the average age is 40. The students’ combined and varied experience plays directly into the program. Class sizes of 15-20 students, roughly half that of many EMBA programs in the United States, means that classmates have an intimate setting in which to share their experiences and learn from each other.

From an academic angle, Dimechkie said “the overall focus is on general management” so that all elements of the contemporary business world are covered. This facet allows an executive to speak with an accountant, human resources manager or marketing executive and be able to follow the conversation without a second thought.

Furthermore, the AUB program prides itself on having strong roots in the region. This is also reflected in the academics of the EMBA, which aims to be Middle East relevant in three ways. First, there is a strong focus on the service industry, which is very important to both the Levant and the Gulf. Second, there is an emphasis on small and mid-sized enterprises. This is a nod to the numerous family-run businesses of the Middle East. Finally, there is a specific focus on Arab businesses. The OSB facilitates this by conducting case studies on the Arab world and by bringing in Arab leaders to lecture.

The cost of class

Full tuition for the program is around $35,500, usually paid in one of two ways: either the students cover the cost themselves or their company pays. A common practice when the company pays is that the cost gets amortized over a three-year period. For example, if the freshly graduated employee leaves the company after one year, they must reimburse the company for two-thirds the cost of the program. If they leave after two years they are responsible for one-third the cost and if they leave after three years they owe nothing. This approach helps to prevent a valuable human resource investment from walking out the door.

While AUB’s business school is cheaper than many Western options, there are several other options in Lebanon for the value conscious. One of these is the Ecole Supérieure des Affaires (ESA) in a quiet neighborhood of West Beirut. “Both our MBA and EMBA require 16 months of course work and four months for the thesis,” said ESA Academic Coordinator Jan Schaaper. The MBA is designed for young professionals with less than five years of experience. It is a much more technical degree, while the EMBA focuses on soft skills like employee relations and negotiation. Schaaper suggested the EMBA has value added in that “professionals are coming together, not only for course work, but to share their experiences as well.”

ESA’s graduate business students usually hail from Lebanon, though some come from Syria and Jordan as well. The MBA programs are conducted in cooperation with ESCP EAP European School of Management and are taught in French. But according to Schaaper, the main difference between the American MBA system and French programs like ESA is specialization. “The French system has specialized master’s degrees. We have not only an EMBA, but also four specialized master’s for executives including finance, marketing, hospital management and we will be offering Islamic finance next year,” he said. The MBA program costs some $13,000 and the EMBA is roughly a thousand dollars more.

For young executives involved in the North African market, the American University of Cairo’s MBA might be of interest. “It is the only AACSB accredited program in the country and many prominent Egyptian business people have graduated from the program,” said Mohga Badran, head of the management unit at AUC’s Department of Management. MBA students can choose to concentrate in accounting, finance, international business, leadership and human resources management, information systems management, marketing or operations management.

According to Badran, 90% of these MBA students come from Egypt and the remainder from other Arab countries, Europe and the US. Half of the students are engineers, while the others are physicians, family business owners or from multi-nationals with offices in Egypt. The program is entirely in-house as it has no affiliation with any foreign universities. Regarding the cost of tuition, students who complete the minimum 33 semester credit hours pay $52,000. Students coming from the sciences, however, may qualify for the full-ride Gameel Fellowship.

Learning in the GCC

There are also several options for MBA programs in the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates boasts several business schools such as the American University of Sharjah (AUS). “Diversity is one of the attractions of AUS. Our MBA students come from the UAE (28%), Iran (21%), Syria, Jordan, Palestine and throughout the GCC,” said Rob Bateman, acting dean of the Business Management School.

The program’s core courses often require practical projects involving actual business situations, preparation of business plans or resolutions of leadership problems, added Bateman. Most students enroll part-time as they have full-time employment at corporations based in the Emirates. It is possible to complete the degree in one year, although three to four years is more common. Starting tuition for the program is $39,000.

Also in the Gulf is Qatar University (QU) in Doha. “The Qatar MBA curriculum presents students with a cross-functional approach to business education that leads to a better understanding of real world challenges in the current business environment,” according to Mohammad Najdawi, dean of the Business and Economics College. The average age of MBA students is 27 years and the average undergraduate GPA is 3.3. As for foreign affiliation, QU has relationships with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and it will soon have a relationship with Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. The degree costs a minimum of $9,900 for non-Qataris with a business background. Non-nationals who have not previously studied business are required to take 12 foundational credits, raising the price to $13,000. Qatari nationals receive a 30% discount.

Finally, for the up and coming professional looking for executive education in Damascus, the Higher Institute for Business Administration (HIBA) offers a solution. HIBA students are predominantly Syrian, but also come from Jordan, Egypt and France. HIBA offers both an MBA and an EMBA.

“There are three main foci for the MBA program,” according to HIBA’s dean Fouad Dib, “communication in business administration, economics, and quantitative methods in business administration.” Students can also specialize in marketing, human resources and finance. All courses are given in English and the MBA program takes 18 months on average. HIBA has cooperation agreements with Universitat Autonoma in Barcelona and with the Bordeaux Business School in France. Tuition for the EMBA costs $11,700 for Syrians and $12,000 for internationals.

Thus there is no shortage of executive education in the region. From North Africa to the Levant and the Gulf, opportunities for professional growth abound, with the MBA is still the most common form of graduate business degree. As long as the regional need for executive talent continues to grow, the number of executive education programs available will continue to grow with it.

Survival in the Arctic tundra requires a certain wherewithal — a variety of aptitudes that differ slightly, one might assume, from what one needs to know to live in, say, a blazing hot desert. Increasingly however, it seems to be that whether one’s walk of life leaves tracks in sand or snow, it’s all in the same stride.

Take for example the barren, wind-blasted coast of the northern tip of Newfoundland where tiny pockets of communities cling to existence. In this region of “The Rock” — as Newfoundlanders wistfully refer to this island off Canada’s east coast — people are not so much the salt of earth as the salt of the sea. Historically, growing up here meant being in a boat with one’s father learning the jigs and reels of fishing cod from the frigid North Atlantic.

Today’s lessons

In the later half of the 20th century, however, fleets of industrialized factory freezer vessels arrived from around the world to pillage the bountiful Grand Banks, dragging nets the size of city blocks across the ocean floor and hauling up cod by the ton with every pass. Today, the fish stocks are decimated beyond commercial viability and the ageing fishermen of these outport settlements are undoubtedly among the last of their kind.

With no future for them at work on the waves, the children of these fishermen are left to learn a new livelihood, a fact that has led may of them to the classrooms of the College of the North Atlantic (CNA) in St. Anthony which, with close to 3,000 residents, is by far the region’s largest town and claims the only traffic light for the next 450 km.

Here, some 100 full-time students pursue college diplomas and trade certificates in fields ranging from health sciences to information technology and business studies to industrial trades. Indeed, the CNA has been a public institution in Newfoundland and Labrador — the province’s official name — for more than 40 years, with 16 other campuses similar to the one in St. Anthony spread through the vast southern expanses of the island, offering training and opening career opportunities for the some 8,500 full-time students who attend. The CNA is often the only locally available institution for post-secondary education, and the role it plays on The Rock today — offering students new skill-sets necessary to adapt to rapid economic change — has resonated in places that couldn’t be farther removed.

Just under a decade ago, in the torrid heat and dust storms of the Middle Eastern state of Qatar, a problem began vexing Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser al-Misnad and other members of Qatar’s royal family: despite an economy surging on oil revenues and a GDP per capita amongst the highest in the world, few Qataris were actually engaged in an active role in their nation’s development — they simply did not have the training to be able to do so, and thus most of the skilled technical work was being done by expatriates.   

The education quest

To remedy this situation and encourage greater Qatari participation in national industries like oil and gas, it was decided a “college of technology” ought to be founded in the emirate under the guidance of a foreign partner institution. Deeming the Canadian education model most attractive, the Canadian Bureau of International Education (CBIE) was contacted, which then accepted submission proposals from colleges across Canada and short-listed four for the Qataris’ inspection.

And so on May 2, 2001, some 14 arduous hours drive south of St. Anthony, a plane carrying a delegation of senior advisers to Her Highness landed at the airport outside Newfoundland’s capital St. John’s. The Rock was still frozen in winter’s grip as the royal family’s emissaries stepped from their chauffeured limos at the provincial legislature building, greeted by a massive Qatari flag rippling in the wind above a flagpole half buried in a gargantuan snow bank.

“I think they saw a little of themselves in us,” said Stephen Lee, CNA’s marketing and communications manager, floating the idea of cultural similarities derived from Qatar’s pearl diving past and Newfoundland’s fishing heritage, also noting that Qatar’s oil-fuelled economic revolution is what Newfoundland dreams will come of its own relatively-infantile-but-expanding oil industry. “Really, we’re following in their footsteps,” he claimed.

However dubious this might sound, money talks, and soon after the 2001 visit the two parties signed a 10-year, $500 million contract for the creation of the somewhat-oddly-named “College of the North Atlantic – Qatar.”

In the seven years since the agreement — the largest deal ever for any Canadian university — CNA-Q has grown to be the second largest educational institution in the emirate, worth some $1.7 billion, with 600 employees, 2,500 students, a 75,000 square meter campus with state-of-the-art industrial workshops, laboratories, computer systems, libraries, lounges, swimming pools and cafés. 

In June 2008 Newfoundland’s premier Danny Williams, on his first trip to Qatar to attend graduation ceremonies at the CNA-Q, remarked, “It really was an unbelievable ceremony. This young girl gets up, the valedictorian, and speaks so eloquently without notes… and the energy minister turns to me and says, ‘we owe all of this to Newfoundland and Labrador’.”

And with that a most unlikely of fraternities was affirmed, bonding The Pearl of the Persian Gulf to The Rock of the North Atlantic, with the educational essentials of living in the modern age building the bridge over the oceans between.