There was a good article in the New York Times this weekend about Edinburgh Business School bringing their online MBA to students in Africa. This could be a big step, because as many of you know it's relatively hard to find good, accredited MBA programs in most regions in Africa - due mainly to infrastructure and cultural reasons.

From the Times' article, it appears that a main niche for this type of program, is, strangely enough, rights and activist organizations. I guess that this is due to the fact that the audience might be made up of westerners doing aid work there, or locals who are training to do this type of work.

The only problem I see with this program is the cost - each class costs over $1,000 U.S, which is a bit out of the range of many people in Africa. Although apparently Edinburgh is providing a limited number of scholarships.

I think that this system might set a precedent for other schools to do something like this, although it would be nice if an organization like the Gates Foundation could invest it, to foster education for everybody and not just the rich.

Dear Sir

As the program has started already in Egypt in two universities ( ain shams and AUC) . Do you have feedback about it ?

Ralph, I don't understand how Heriot-Watt's Edinburgh Business School connects with your comment that "it's relatively hard to find good, accredited MBA programs in most regions in Africa". EBS does not have any meaningful international accreditation.