Thursday, October 28, 2010

CEMBA has finally been accredited. Yay!

The Commonwealth Executive Master of Business Administration (CEMBA) offered by Wawasan Open University (WOU) has finally been accredited by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA). You can read the news here from TheStar.

The course is given the accreditation after the first batch have graduated. I was told that this is one of the requirements set by MQA that the first batch have to complete the entire course before it can be accredited.

The WOU's MBA was already given recognition by the MQA and the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) three years ago. It is only a matter of time before it is to be accredited. So, the day has finally arrived.

In Malaysia, a program has to be given recognition first by the MQA before a private college/university could run that program. Once it has been given recognition, the private college/university could then start offering that program to students. After the first batch of students have graduated, the private college/university could then apply for accreditation from MQA.

This is definitely the selling point for WOU's MBA because there are so many MBAs out there offered by various colleges where the MBA are not even recognised by MQA.

The only biggest competitor for WOU's MBA in Penang is definitely USM's MBA. The Penang branch of Open University Malaysia (OUM) offers an MBA as well. But somehow I wonder why OUM does not do much promotion on its MBA.

Of course there are other MBAs being offered by various colleges in Penang. But I doubt those MBAs are recognised by MQA.

I was told by a lecturer that some courses (especially the executive diploma courses) being offered by a certain public university are not recognised by MQA! I was surprised. So, please do not think that all courses being offered by a public university are recognised by MQA. The one you should be wary of are those executive diploma courses.

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