India is a strategic market for us; it is one of the top three countries where we have recruited students from: Dr Mukesh Aghi, CEO, U21Global

Founded in 2001, U21Global offers management-related programs on the Internet, and has in a short span become one of the top 5 global players as per Financial Times. U21Global currently specializes in Business Management and Information Technology Management programs with MBA as its flagship. Currently, over 3,000 students are pursuing programs with U21Global, whose 19 affiliated universities include McGill University, University of Glasgow, University of Nottingham, Korea University, National University of Singapore, University of Hong Kong, University of Melbourne and University of New South Wales.

MBAUniverse.com interviewed Dr Mukesh Aghi, the Chief Executive Officer of U21Global, to understand its approach to management education, the salient features of its programs and its experiences with eLearning. Dr Aghi has been at the helm of the company since its inception in 2001. Earlier, hes served as president of IBM India, before setting up the technology group Ariba Inc in the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining IBM, he was Managing Director of software company JD Edwards in the Asia Pacific region. Dr Aghi has a PhD in International Relations from Claremont Graduate University, California, and an MBA in International Marketing from Andrews University, Michigan.

Excerpts from an exclusive interview with MBAUniverse.com:

Q: What was the genesis of U21Global? How did this online education concept come about?
When we look at the demand for postgraduate education, we see that it will be impossible for traditional education sources to cater to such a demand. Take India for example: last year a record 1.91 lakh students sat for the Common Admission Test (CAT). Most educational institutions are looking at online education as an alternative to assist them cope with the demand. While the numbers of future students in India and China are staggering, there will also be a demand from smaller developing nations who cannot afford to gear up their institutions to high quality international education quickly enough to cope with the demand.
U21Global, established in 2001, is an online graduate school that delivers graduate education for working executives and professionals. Our programs combine a passion for student-centered learning with state-of-the-art technological platforms, providing students with substantial learning advantages, while balancing work, travel and family life. The graduate school is a joint venture between Universitas 21 (U21), an international network of 19 distinguished universities in 11 countries, and Thomson Learning, a provider of tailored learning solutions for individuals and businesses worldwide.

Q: What is the flagship program at U21Global?
U21Global currently specializes primarily in Business Management and Information Technology Management programs. The graduate schools flagship program is the Master of Business Administration (MBA) which was launched in 2003.

Q: Can you share some salient features of your MBA program?
The MBA program prepares students for leadership roles in the global economy. Students are trained to take well-informed business decisions through creative, problem-solving approaches. They are required to complete 18 subjects. Our MBA program consists of ten compulsory core subjects, seven electives and one research project.

The duration of the program depends on the number of subjects a student takes at one time, and whether one chooses to take extended pauses. On an average, the MBA program will take about 2 years to complete but students have the flexibility of taking up to five years to complete the degree.

Q: What have been some key milestones in the journey of this education platform?
Since our inception, we have placed great emphasis on providing students with a quality educational experience. The quality culture has underpinned a number of significant notable successes at U21Global. First, in 2005, we received the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) teChnology-Enhanced Learning (CEL) accreditation. Second, in September 2006, we were advanced to candidacy for accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). This is the most stringent and valued accreditation process for business schools globally and greatly enhances credibility, branding and attractiveness to students and businesses alike. Third, we are a founding member of the EU-supported Global Universities in Distance Education (GUIDE).

Since we launched our flagship MBA program in 2003, we have seen our student base expand to more than 3,000 students from over 60 countries around the world. We celebrated our first group of 77 graduates from 15 countries at our inaugural graduation ceremony in Singapore in January 2007. This was indeed a significant milestone for us.
There have also been an increasing number of partnerships with high-profile corporations and government agencies to design quality education programs for their staff. Citibank India, Satyam Computer Services, Keppel Corporation, Frontline Technologies, Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC), Commercial Bank of Dubai, San Miguel Philippines, AP Moeller-Maersk and the Aditya Birla Group are some examples.

Q: Its been an interesting journey! But, what have been some of the learnings? Did U21Global have to rework its education and business model along the way?
The actual evolution of U21Global programs has been quite different and is still occurring. Quality in its diverse aspect has emerged as the defining feature of U21Global programs. Admission standards were reasonably high to begin with and have been tightened consistently. Rigorous and very high quality courseware content, navigability and ease of engagement with the courseware have also emerged as hallmarks of U21Global.
The rigors of a rapidly changing global educational environment and an even more quickly changing ICT environment have combined to put enormous and continuing pressure on U21Global, and indeed other international education providers, to be flexible and to learn from past mistakes and seize the opportunities presented by the rapidly shifting educational and technological environments. U21Global has not only been able to do this, but it has evolved a culture that increasingly thrives on and values change.

Q: On the issue of eLearning, a lot has been said and written. In your view how is this mode of learning and teaching suited for management education?
In our view, online learning is most suitable for the mature, adult learner, who is increasingly unable to engage in full-time or even part-time study at a traditional academic institution. For executives who frequently travel, online learning allows them a chance to study anytime and anywhere while maintaining their career opportunities. Another advantage of online learning is that students in remote locations or in rural communities may also connect to professors and vice versa.

Online learning combines excellence and expertise of traditional on-campus teaching with an innovative and flexible learning design. There is a greater flexibility in relation to time and curriculum, and this flexibility is vital for time-constrained working professionals wishing to balance study with work and family commitments.

Moreover, online education is designed more like work in the modern environment, and so is more familiar to executives who wish to study than a campus environment. So for applied programs, like management, this makes application and practical nature of the program more real.

Many people think the main drawback of studying in a fully online environment is the absence of non-verbal communication. Our experience with students from 60 countries however shows that in reality, global networks are built through their interactions via the online discussion boards and team projects. The students then take advantage of their business travels to meet up with each other.

Another common misconception about online learning is that students do not have the chance to develop soft people skills. The truth is that team projects provide opportunities for small group interaction on a global scale monitored by the professor. These help students develop essential virtual team skills and multi-cultural understanding, both of which are the basis for most of the work done in global firms today.

Further, just look around you anywhere in Asia and you will see a large number of people keeping their own personal networks alive through various online tools such as Messenger, SMS text messaging and blogs, just to name a few. Thus, online is not at all isolating, rather it is increasingly the means by which people stay in touch!

Q: What is the pedagogy followed at U21Global? How is it similar and different from other brick-and-mortar B-schools?
Our learner-focused pedagogy combines the high quality content of our founders with innovative courseware and flexible modes of delivery on the Internet.

The great power of online learning is its interactivity and connectedness.This is the sort of online learning we promote at U21Global. Here the approach we take is called constructivist as opposed to the traditional instructivist talking head model of university lecturing which typically tests memory not thinking, creativity or analysis.Here, the role of the faculty member is to help student construct the knowledge they need from broad principles and ideas and use the power of the web to seek the data and information they need. In todays world, information is changing rapidly and is at a students fingertips so why teach facts that will change quickly?

This sort of teaching requires a significant change usually for our faculty members. They need to be: facilitators not teachers/instructors; coaches and mentors not taskmasters; focused on learners and learning not instructing and conveying facts; and finally focused the thinking and analytic capacities and skills of learners not on their ability to memorize soon-to-be out of date stylized facts.

Our graduate programs draw upon the best practices in online learning and have been approved by U21pedagogica, an independent quality assurance body established by our U21 parent institutions. U21pedagogica ensures that the curriculum and learning outcomes meet the rigorous academic standards of all 19 affiliated universities.

Q: Is online education more suited to executives and corporates?
We believe many more professionals will choose online learning as a viable option and corporates will adopt this form of learning as the accepted mode of delivery for their employees. It suits them because otherwise these people would not have either the means or the time to pursue their academic dreams. When you combine high quality, academic reputation, strong university brands, and the convenience of today's ubiquitous Internet, it adds up to a win-win for all concerned: employers and employees.

Q: European accreditation body EFMD has recognized the MBA program at U21Global. Tell us more about it.
The EFMD through EQUIS (the European Quality Improvement Services), and CLIP (the Corporate Learning Improvement Process) is recognized globally as an accreditation and certification body of quality in management education. With the exponential growth of eLearning in the last five years, the EFMD developed CEL with the fundamental objective of raising the standard of technology-enhanced learning programs worldwide. The accreditation examines in detail the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process and provides a coherent concept for the evaluation and advancement of educational programs.
U21Global was the second business school in the world to have been awarded the EFMD CEL back in 2005.

Q: The recent report by Financial Times on distance learning MBA programs in 2007 puts U21Global at No 5 slot (in size of enrolments). Other key players are: University of Phoenix, Edinburgh Business School, Henley Management College and Open University Business School. How does U21Global see itself in comparison with other global distance education players?
Our business model is a pioneering one. The key to our success is the ongoing broad and deep set of linkages with the affiliated universities. No other online consortium has had the active and continuing engagement of its university parents. This has ensured, for example, that the quality of our courseware, faculty, admissions and assessment processes, and our student services is at a level equivalent to that of the U21 universities. This ongoing quality assurance provided by U21pedagogica has created a culture of quality assurance and quality improvement at U21Global which is without peer. Learning outcomes at U21Global are as good as anywhere online and as noted on a par with those available at our parents universities.

Q: How do you look at India? What has been the response from students and other stakeholders in India?
We entered the India market approximately 3 years ago and had initially faced a challenge in educating the market and raising the awareness level of the effectiveness of eLearning before we could position our brand successfully. I am however happy to say that the Indian region has shown significant progress and has proved to be a strong market for the graduate school.
India is one of the top three countries where we have recruited students from, and together with Singapore and the Middle East contributes approximately 80% of our present student population.
Gradually, the growing availability and acceptance of online programmes has become a viable option for working executives and professionals, especially with the increase in the disposable income, the flexibility that it offers and the more importantly, the need to maintain competitive advantage in the global economy.

Q: From an Indian students point of view, how does the U21Global programs compare with other options from Indian B-schools offering distance education? Also what placements support is on offer?
There are extremely few options available for genuine, high-quality online learning. There is the distance learning variety with dead-content, which is the antithesis of interactive, constructive pedagogy; and there is the genuine eLearning type of pedagogy offered by U21Global, that engages the learner and allows him or her to construct his knowledge base in a real-life manner which enhances his competencies and applied skills.
At U21Global, we place a lot of emphasis in helping our students to excel in their academic pursuits as well as achieving their professional development goals. Hence we have a student services department that provides a complete continuum of services from application for admission, through academic counseling and student support services while studying including career counseling, culminating in a wide range of alumni services.Our career counseling efforts are continually being upgraded and extended to equip our students with professional development skills such as resume writing, career planning, and job search. Career placement information and other services are also placed online to facilitate their professional development.

Q: Please share future plans with respect to India
India has proved to be one of the strategic locations for us and will remain so. Statistics have shown that there is increasing number of companies turning to eLearning providers to tailor their corporate training programs as compared to the traditional arrangement of sponsorship at brick and mortar institutions. Our business strategy is to work with these corporates to further establish our commitment and contribution in this space.

Q: Are there new programs in the pipeline?
We are planning to launch a new double degree MBA (Public and Private Sectors) with the University of Birmingham in the latter half of this year. We are also working closely with many of the Universitas 21 universities and other universities worldwide to expand our program offerings further.

Q: How does the future look for U21Global?
There is a strong demand for high-quality education, fueled in part by the tremendous economic development we are seeing particularly in Asia, and the emergence of the knowledge economy.As awareness of U21Global increases, we expect this momentum to continue further in 2007 and beyond.

With eLearning being the fastest-growing sub-sector of a US$2.3 trillion global education market, and the market for online higher education estimated to exceed US$69 billion by 2015, the future definitely looks bright.