Friday, 22 August 2008

How to earn a master degree from the best university in the world even without a first degree

The ‘best university in the world’ means Edinburgh Business School, the Graduate School of Business at Heriot-Watt University.




Many graduates of the school have said it is the best Business School in Scotland. And from what we know of UK education, any school that can be one the best in UK can be one the best anywhere in the world.



Recently, in its survey of 20 of the top global distance learning MBAs, Financial Times Newspaper ranked Edinburch Business School Heriot-Watt University as Europe’s largest and second largest in the world.



In 15 years, the EBS programmes have spawned over 10,000 graduates in 150 countries.



More than 50% of fortune 100 companies have their staff on the Edinburgh Business School MBA programme.

The school was given the Queen’s Award for export in 1994 and 1997.



Options

Student can acquire a General MBA or a Specialist Masters in an assortment of areas. You can have your MBA in Marketing, Human Resource Management, Finance, Strategic Planning or Public Administration.



A shower of Certificates

Students can obtain up to three certificates en route to completion of the MBA. This is good news for Nigerians. Admit it! Are we not a certificate crazy lot?

You can grab the following certificates as you go through the programme.

1. Postgraduate Certificate in Business Administration

2. Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration

3. Specialist (named) Postgraduate Diploma



I will tell you more about these certificates and how to obtain them presently.





From the horse’s mouth

“Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University offers a range of Postgraduate programmes in business and management, including one of the most popular online distance learning MBA programmes in the world.



“Intentionally different, we offer you choice and flexibility in your learning style, and judge you on your examination results not your coursework, language of study, attendance or life experience.



“We at Edinburgh Business School remove the barriers to study. If you have the determination and intellect, we give you the opportunity to succeed at Postgraduate level.”



Three months before the examination is scheduled register at ebsglobal.net your choice of exam and approximate location. You will then be allocated an examination centre, invigilator or proctor appointed by Edinburgh Business School.



If you need help registering for the exams, contact enquiries@ebs.hw.ac.uk.

Exam Sessions

The exam sessions called diets are held in all exam centres for all courses in June and December every year. Other exam sessions are held at selected centres for selected courses.



You have 3 hours to finish each exam. All questions are compulsory and must be answered. Though exam scripts are marked by EBS faculty, the script are robustly dissected by external examiners from other UK universities. You pay 100 pound sterling for each examination you sit. Also, you are allowed only two shots (examination attempts) for each core course.



This means if you flunked a core course you have one more chance of re-siting it.

Exam registration deadline

31st January for the March diet. 20th February for the June diet. 17th July for the August diet and 20th August for the December diet.

Nigerian exam centres

As I couldn’t find any Nigerian centre on EBS website, I asked them if Nigerians have to go to Ghana, which has a centre listed for their examination. But fortunately for us we don’t need to dust our bags and head for the Goldcoast. You however need to go to any British council nearest to you for your examination.



How many examinations do you need to sit?

Students going for general MBA need to sit 9 courses only. While those doing specialist MBA will sit for 11 courses.

Exemptions

Exemptions from some core courses may be granted to holders of recognized academic or professional qualification if they are of degree level and if they have been obtained by examination. You can not be granted exemption from an elective course. Do note that you are not going to be given exemption for work experience. EBS advises students not to purchase a course until they have applied for and received a response on their exemption requests.

Matriculation card

Registration as Heriot –Watt MBA student means you are going to be automatically registered as a matriculated part-time student at Heriot-Watt university and your matriculation card will be sent to you.

Entry requirements

I wanted to leave the interesting part till the last paragraph but let me give it to you now. You are not qualified to sit for the MBA courses if you do not have a first degree or reasonable academic record.

However……….

Passing three courses one of which must be a core courses, qualifies you for the programme.

This means even if you are a toddler who has never attended a nursery school can go for this MBA provided you can pass the three papers.



Also passing these three courses counts towards your qualification. That is passing three courses means you have only six more papers to write (if you are doing the general MBA).



Certificates



These are the things your need to do in order to get the certificates I talked about earlier.



1. To become eligible for the award of a Postgraduate, a student must be matriculated and successfully complete three MBA courses, at least one of which must be a core course.

2. To become eligible for the award of a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Administration, a student must be matriculated and successfully complete six MBA courses, at least one of which must be a core MBA course.

3. To become eligible for the award of a specialist Postgraduate Diploma, a student must complete six courses to include the relevant core course and at least four of the electives designated as relevant of the specialism in question.



For more information contact:

British Council Abuja, Lagos, Port-Harcourt or Kano.



Edinburgh Business School

Tel: +44 (0) 131 451 3090, Fax: +44 (0) 131 14513092

Email:enquiries@abs.hw.ac.uk, Web: ebsglobal.net

If you still don’t know how to start, I may be able to answer one or two questions: 09-4801415, 08045081919, 08033764520

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