Olugbenro Oyekan, an associate professor of Management Practice Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI UK) and vice president, International School of Management (ISM) Lagos, in this interview with KELECHI EWUZIE, gives insight into how students and corporate individuals can adopt online platform of learning to bolster business knowledge in order to stay competitive. Excerpts:
May we know about International School of Management?
The (ISM) Lagos is a niche private business school approved by the Federal Ministry of Education as a postgraduate level institution for the furtherance of academic and professional proficiencies in business, management and finance in Nigeria. We believe in the provision of affordable quality education to Nigerians without the need to migrate. ISM Lagos totally supports the idea of blended education offered via online and long distance mode. We are the major partners to two of the world’s largest online distance learning providers. Our partnership with the Laureate Online Education and RDI UK provides quality degree programmes up to doctoral level to teeming Nigerian students and professionals across industries.
We have deployed a system of individualised and inclusive system of learning through our interactive and tutor-led platform called Online Campus Nigeria (OCN). OCN provides very practical and actionable knowledge to students and professionals through well researched and thoroughly assessed pedagogy which ensures that every learning outcome is designed to improve specific skills and competencies. Majority of our programmes are tailor-made and discipline-specific posed to address definite economic, social and professional issues.
What informed the method of education adopted by founders of ISM?
ISM is a product of social entrepreneurship. We derived from the realisation of the crisis in the Nigerian education. Despite the increasing number of providers in Nigeria, greater number of people still prefers foreign education. The problems are actually complex and beyond the fact that the institutions are not enough. For example, there is a general misconception that most private institutions are better than the public ones making the private providers charge exorbitant fees. Some of those institutions were founded by organisations whose members contributed a lot of resources to float up to two or three institutions within a decade and half, yet many of the members cannot afford the fees charged by the institutions. It sounds strange but a paradox. So, regulators need to be more responsible by assessing the motives of some rich organisations taking advantage of the crisis.
Then there is the issue of poor quality and inadequate capacity, which are the bigger issues. So our approach is simple and very specific; we want to enable Nigerians access affordable quality education. So, innovative programme designs and information technology both present us with such an unlimited array of opportunities to succeed. We source for quality programme contents and the best faculty using the most cost-effective modes and arrangements.
Who are those that stand to benefit from the education that ISM provides?
We are a business school. Our market consists largely of students and professionals seeking business education such as all aspects of management, leadership, entrepreneurship, finance and related studies. We work as consultants and research institute to private and public organisations. We also collaborate with universities, professional institutes and governments on a variety of projects. A good example is the Academic Integrity and Anti-plagiarism project on which we presented a white paper to the committee of vice chancellors of Nigerian universities and the co-heads of polytechnics and colleges of education. In order to create mass awareness and encourage voluntary compliance with academic integrity rules among students and lecturers also, ISM Lagos also published a well-researched reference textbook on that project; Academic Integrity: Study & Guide (2013, Xlibris Publishing UK), which was assessed and recommended by the National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) for use by the tertiary institutions.
How has the school tailored its offerings to meet organisation needs?
Organisations provide us with wholesale access to the market, so they are very critical to the success of our offerings. ISM Lagos likes to create programmes and learning outcomes that are specific to a set of people or organisations and their learning. We also create industry or discipline-specific programmes such as Management of Medical & Health Organisations, Law Office Management, HND Top-Up and the Art of Pious Politics. We have created many of the programmes either as an intensive weeklong offering offered in face-to-face format or as an extended interactive online education accessible by basic internet connectivity to our OCN available on all the common devices. The latter presents a good opportunity for organisations to train their employees without the need to go away from their daily functions or the extra expenses incurred on transportation and accommodation. There is no negative implication for quality or learning outcomes despite all the cost reduction advantages of the online learning, rather each employee is afforded the opportunity to learn at his (individual) pace with little or no disruptions to personal or career life.
What makes ISM different from other education and training platforms available in Nigeria?
As it seems, many Nigerians are still very weary of online learning but the reality is that many people are simply being unrealistic. Technology is fast taking over every aspect of our lives regardless of race or region and there is nothing we can do about it. It is the nature of the future. Or looking back to some three or four years ago, how do you explain the present day reality that Nigerians can now do interbank transfers on their phone? The change we do not prepare for will only come to us as a disadvantage. We appreciate the universal nature and the inclusive ability of the online learning. It is a veritable means for the Nigerian type of system where there is a large low income earner population. A great advantage of blended and online learning is its very cheap prices without any effect on quality or practicality. Check out the fees on our Online Campus Nigeria and you would notice weeks-long courses for as cheap as N20, 000. Some of them are also free for some categories of people such as our alumni and students of some universities or members of professional bodies. This is another huge cost-saving advantage to everybody whether individuals or organisations
What is the response like to this form of education in Nigeria?
Just as I said earlier, there is still a lot of scepticism about online learning in Nigeria but it is also clear that the inertia is gradually waning. Even some of the federal public universities have started building learning portals for their distance learning programmes. We are convinced based on research and experience that online learning is as effective as the traditional face-to-face mode and it is one of the biggest things making waves amongst universities and students all over the world. ISM Lagos is not relenting in her efforts at continuing to the future ahead of the others.
How globally competitive and relevant are the courses offered by ISM?
ISM Lagos is a Nigerian business school with an enviable international exposure. We may not be as popular as the older schools but our alumni testify to the richness and global exposures that come with our offerings. As a rule, we benchmark our offerings with globally competitive standards and this has been the attraction for both our students and foreign partners. We deliberately create programmes that address specific needs of the societies and professions around us. We do not believe in generic courses that have little or no relevance to the market and we are seeing the results already because the market would always respond to those who understand it.
How affordable are the programmes offered and are there any financial incentives to encourage intending candidates?
All our programmes are very affordable with extra values added. We create a platform for each class of our programmes where students continue learning from the faculty and amongst themselves for up to three months after the programme. I will tell you something, when we get participants sponsored by corporate organisations on any of our programmes, we don’t just teach them and end there; we also send confidential and objective evaluation on each participant with suggestions on necessary improvement.
We are not just a training institute; ISM Lagos is an academic institution with the full understanding and practice of Universal Design Learning as a method of fostering truly inclusive knowledge creation and sharing.
