More than 90% of Birmingham's MBA students are from overseas, the second-highest proportion of any business school in the world (the highest is at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland).
Of course, overseas business schools are just as keen to break into the UK market as British schools are to get high-paying overseas students to study here. For example, the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, a Spanish business school, runs an international MBA that is taught in English for the first term and Spanish subsequently. It also offers intensive Spanish classes before the main course starts. Half of the students come from outside Spain.
As a result of globalisation, you can learn wherever you are by downloading teaching materials and communicating with tutors and fellow students on the Internet. You can study the Open University Business School MBA from anywhere in the world, and the OU recently announced an agreement with the Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Paris to translate whatsApp number database and adapt one of its courses for French-speaking markets.
Henley Management College has 22 overseas associated schools, all of which allow study for a Henley MBA. Henley runs an in-company MBA for 250 IBM managers in Europe entirely by distance-learning, and even claims that it can get the students thinking and working as a team by creating a virtual classroom environment.
Warwick Business School's (WBS) treatment of e-learning gives students the opportunity to work with, and learn from other students across the globe. WBS has also launched its own on-line e-business course for its distance learning MBA. This will give international groups of students the opportunity to tackle real e-business issues and problems with input from e-business practitioners.
E-business MBAs extend the length of time used for learning, and are convenient for those who find it difficult to travel to the business school. However, many of the business schools believe that a cornerstone of the MBA program is the face-to-face interaction. Peter Calladine says that some subjects are better suited to on-line learning than others. These tend to be subjects where interaction is not so essential. On an MBA programme this would include quantitative methods and accounting. For the most 'touchy-feely' subjects such as HRM, strategy and so forth, peer group discussion and interaction are essential.
Many business schools still believe there is a key part of the MBA experience that cannot be captured in distance learning. But the method is attracting an increasing share of the market. It may be that in the next century, students will cease to worry about how international their local business school is, because they can just as easily do their MBA at a school on the other side of the world.
seek advice from the Association of MBAs, who have information on all reputable business schools. The Association annually publishes The Official MBA Handbook, which explains everything you need to know about MBA study, including: how to select the right school, apply for a place, and what you can achieve with an MBA. There is also a world-wide listing of individual schools, giving essential details such as size, culture, programme content, faculty, student body and facilities.