A seller's market for management education in Britain?

Abstract

There is common agreement today in government and in industry about the need to educate and develop British management as a means of achieving faster economic growth and more rapid technological change. As a result, huge investments are being made in new facilities for management training—in the business schools and universities, in the newly‐created polytechnics, in independent colleges such as Ashridge and Henley, and in industrial colleges, under the impetus of the Industrial Training Act. There is probably about a hundred million pounds of capital already invested in staff and facilities', and with the present drive for management education we could see this figure increased substantially over the next five years. When we consider the capital investment involved it is surprising how few statistics are available on which future plans can be based. Few private businessmen would launch a venture costing say a quarter of a million pounds without doing some market research—yet it is not unusual for a local authority, a university or an independent body to establish a management college costing several hundred thousand pounds without prior research. The market for short courses in particular is very volatile and as a result most colleges have passed through periods when their premises were only partially filled, and some colleges have been forced to close through lack of support. As Mr. Marples of Cambridge said in a recent article, “the small academic groups which exist in a number of our institutions of higher learning have discovered to their cost, the difficulties of securing support for their post‐experience ventures.” In Eire, and in Belgium, and in parts of the USA, comprehensive studies have been made into the needs and facilities for management education and training as a basis for policy making. In Britain one or two limited studies have been made but we still lack a sound statistical basis for the predictions which must be made about this vital market. Apart from the investigation we have carried out for Yorkshire, Northern Ireland is the only region which has commissioned a survey of needs and facilities before the re‐development of its management education service.

Citation

TAYLOR, B. (1967), "A seller's market for management education in Britain?", Management Decision, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 56-61. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb000792