How easy and accessible is an MBA distance learning program?

If we look at the programs that exist, the International MBA has various characteristics:

• Firstly - this will be a real English program, and to become a student, you need to be fluent in English. But this is rather an indisputable advantage of the program for its potential students because in Ukraine the number of businessmen who are fluent in English is not so great. And those who are not fluent in English, teaching in a foreign language will be seen as a disadvantage.

• Secondly - International MBA program is accredited by the European Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation (FIBAA). It was established by a number of large MNCs interested in recruiting specialists who have already been trained in programs of a guaranteed high quality. Nevertheless this program does not have such weight in Europe as, for example, the all-known association European Foundation for Management Development founded in 1971, which unites about 400 business schools and has a very tough reputation regarding the system of evaluation. Accreditation at FIBAA is one of the important details of the International MBA program, as none of the existing business schools in Ukraine is accredited at the highest level, although IIM and LIM are its formal members.

• Thirdly - according to the organizers, the International MBA program will be taught, along with Ukrainian coaches - foreign experts from leading European business schools, such as London, Warwick, IMD, the Belgian School of Management EHSAL and others.

• Fourthly - the joint IBR and KIMEP program is flexible both in terms of schedule and focus of studies, the program can be customized to the needs of the specific audience that will be recruited.

The interviewed experts considered the following to be the disadvantages of the International MBA:

• Firstly - its remoteness. Of the 18 months almost 17 are reserved for extracurricular, that is independent study of students. At the same time, according to many MBA students, most of the knowledge they get from communicating with each other. This is not surprising, if you remember what a wealth of experience have students, some of the enrolled in the study are already holding the highest positions in their companies: the chairmen of the supervisory boards, general and financial directors, chief accountants, etc. With the distance learning method, on the other hand, communication between students is more difficult.

• Secondly - the cost of the Interna-tional MBA program, which has not yet established itself in Ukraine, is almost the same as that of the MIM with 10 years of experience, the competition for which is about 2 people per place.

• Thirdly - until recently in Germany, as well as in Japan, there were no business schools in their classical form. In Germany, IBR "launched" a distance learning MBA program only recently.

• Fourthly - the most expensive and the most interesting training option is to get a certain proffesional experience outside of Ukraine - and this has almost half the duration (12 days) than, for example, in the IIM (3 weeks).