Re-imagining business learning – adopting African answers to African challenges Professor Rob Paton, The Open University Business School, EFMD 2013Africa Conference, Dakar, Senegal Entrepreneurship & Management Education in Africa: Are we mis-educating our students? 1

My aims for the session an ‘appreciative inquiry’ into the challenges facing African Business Schools and how they are being addressed For us to explore a collaborative approach to addressing these challenges

Overview Part I How I come to be here Part II Taking stock – half full or half empty? Part III Accelerating Africanization – a thought experiment

Part I How I come to be here

The Open University - my backstory A historical accident: the creation of high quality “Distance” Learning Going against the conventional wisdom to create the OUBS The pre-occupation with pedagogy The OU internationalizes – including programmes in Africa

ABLE Ghana ‘Employability’ – as basis for an inter- organizational collaboration among academic staff Top five business schools involved Learning by doing – project work What I learned: system constraints; limited Africanization of teaching; collaboration valued; interest in OERs…

Work with Kenya Markets Trust Backstory – work with OU MBA alumnus 1 - New forms of work-based learning needed 2 - We had no idea how this could be done 3 - The answer was out there already Enter KMT: system interventions to improve agriculture and raise incomes KCA University and its Enterprise & Leadership Centre Adapting, extending and scaling up through action- research

Part II Taking stock – half full or half empty?

The need More! Better! Cheaper! Nearer!

The Professional challenges Unreformed pedagogies & practices Limited Africanization of content and curriculum Isolated/over-individualised academic culture?

Academic governance and resources Staffing issues Infrastructure Process culture

Lots of good news New generation of academics and returned diaspora Emerging professional infrastructure Initiatives to improve and increase supply Many ‘under the radar’ innovations – lots of solutions are already out there

Reality check ! Does this ring true? What is mistaken or missing? What are you doing towards providing more, better, cheaper, nearer? What other resources/practices/projects deserve to be better known? Cases? Simulations? Peer learning? New media? Innovative assessment? YOUR TASK: Gather in & agree on the top 5 innovations known by those on your table minutes

Part III Accelerating Africanization – a thought experiment

What if ? We had suite of excellent texts, written by African business teachers, drawn from African experiences… what would they be like?

But these won’t work because… They will not be published – and if they are, they will be very expensive Fixed resources are seldom quite right - we need to create our own courses, for our own situations The texts will quickly get out of date They wont be in the right language Academics will ignore them

So what if …? They were Open Educational Resources available on the web… And you could download and adapt to your particular situation … And up- load new ones, as they were prepared…. … In different languages… …And management educators provided reviews of the ones they had used

But this is never going to happen… we wouldn’t have the time what would be the motivation/reward?

Except that it is already happening Where? – Case clearing houses, Biz-ed repositories of resources (see also TESSA ) Why? - driven by concerns to publish scholarly work, to gain professional visibility and standing, to do better teaching, to save time preparing classes…

Reality check ! What already exists that is a bit like this, in your countries? What would the resources have to be like, for you to use them / insist your staff use them? What would encourage you/your staff to contribute to such a shared facility? What might be its business model?

YOUR TASK Suggest simple first steps towards testing/ developing an OER facility & community, created by and for African management educators

Thank you ! Contact: Professor Rob Paton, Centre for Public Leadership & Social Enterprise The Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire MK7 6AA