LAGOS BUSINESS SCHOOL – What business?

By Joseph Edgar…

The Lagos Business School is a prestigious Business school with a strong vision complemented with a strong faculty, and that is where it ends for me. The school for some decades has continued to pride itself as the bastion for the delivery of qualitative business education in the land. It has succeeded in its vison having been rated as top 50 in the global league of business schools.

To gloat, it holds the annual Alumni Presidents dinner which draws the elties of the business and political world to hob nub and exchange ideas on varied topics within their interest. A beautiful picture until you begin to ask a salient question of its impact on the immediate economic environment.

With school fees pushing away the vast majority of the population, thereby drawing attendees from the very top businesses, one would expect a powerful incursion of its ideals and thesis on our businesses and economic climate. But this is sadly not so. The school pushes the very best in ethical business practices, and tries to instil in its students the very essence of corporate governance and global best practices. Through a very sound faculty, upto date and well-fine-tuned business themes are subjected to varied scrutiny and thereby transported into its student population who then are expected to go out there and lead the war on change.

Sadly this is not the case, its Alumin who will be gathering this weekend to fete themselves and back slap theselves have not been in the vanguard of implementing some of these principles in corporate Nigeria. Infact some of them have led the continuous rape of the system, throwing us into the dark ecnomic malaise we find ourselves as a nation.

The very best within the Alumni community can be found at the highest levels of government and business with little or no impact in the attempt to leverage on some of the good works of the school in turning us around. So for the school, is there any need for the continuous annual orgy of self gratification?

I dare say no. A top 50 global business school should, more than ever, be better positioned to impact its immediate environment either by the quality of its products and their service to the community. I think a better feedback mechanism for the rating of a school like the LBS should be carved out by the school and its owners, including the society. A performance measurement that should not only rate how many came out of the school with flying colours but much more importantly the impact of these Alumni on business and its environment.

The shool cannot continue to be glorifying in churning out theoretical giants who becaome midgets in the real world and still be shouting that it is one of the best. In my books, that is playing ‘ojuju Calabar’. Temporary certificates of attendance need to be issued graduands and real certificates given after an impactful service to mankind and business. Then we will know if truy the Lagos Business School is worth its weight in gold.

For now, all I see is an over-hyped system built on very shaky grounds, churning out Alumni who just put their certificates on the walls of their offices but still lead a system that remains very far from the very prinstine theories and vision of the gilded halls that make up the Lagos business school.

Sad.

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