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Officials quitting EMBA courses as corruption fight expands
Print Edition
OFFICIALS from government departments and state-owned companies have been withdrawing from Executive MBA programs after a ban on expensive training courses.
A circular, issued by the Party’s Organization Department and the Ministry of Education in July, stipulates that officials should not be taking part in any expensive training programs.
Officials in such programs must quit or face administrative punishment, it says.
The circular is a bid to combat the problem of officials using public funds or getting money from other sources to pay for such courses, something that could easily lead to corruption.
EMBA programs, which range in price from 400,000 yuan (US$65,125) to 700,000 yuan, are on the circular’s list of banned courses.
After it was issued, a number of schools, including the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), received withdrawal applications from EMBA students working in government, state-owned companies and related public institutions, the Beijing Times reported.
The report said a senior executive at a state-owned bank had quit recently after studying for a year.
Meanwhile, it said the names of three top provincial and city officials, who had studied with executives from famous state-owned and private companies, had been removed from the alumni list on the official CEIBS website.
A CKGSB brochure states that 22 percent of its EMBA students are from state-owned companies, among them provincial and ministry-level officials and heads of large state-owned companies.
It says 112 EMBA students had been elected national political advisers and lawmakers.
The CKGSB brochure says applicants for its EMBA courses should have more than eight years’ work experience including five years in management, and they must get an approval from companies. Tuition this year costs 688,000 yuan.
A person who asked not to be identified told the newspaper that government officials accounted for nearly a third of a 40-student class when he studied at a leadership seminar at Peking University in 2000. He said the seminar had facilitated a lot of cooperation between companies via officials.
Wang Yukai, a professor at the China National School of Administration, told the newspaper that a number of EMBA programs had “turned sour” as educational institutions raised tuition fees after learning that officials could pay with public funds.
A senior executive in a state-owned company who declined to give her name told Shanghai Daily that she attended an EMBA program at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2010. The 300,000 yuan fee was paid by her company.
She said half of her classmates had their fees paid by their companies.
Wang said some schools used students with a government background as a selling point to attract entrepreneurs seeking to expand their network with officials for commercial benefit.
That made it very likely for officials in an EMBA program to be tempted into corruption, Wang said.
Liu Wei, who had taught EMBA courses at two top domestic business schools, told the Beijing Times that one of the reasons many officials were studying EMBA courses was to build a relationship with company bosses and attract investment.
Liu said some business schools would even give tuition discounts to government officials in the hope of boosting their reputation.
The circular also prohibits educational institutions for officials and universities from holding any high-priced training programs or entrusting social organizations to hold official training programs and seminars.
Officials are also banned from using their own money to attend overpriced social training programs, it says.
If officials want to attend courses at their own expense, they must get approval from their human resources departments.
Shanghai’s Fudan University said yesterday that its enrolment hadn’t been affected by the circular but declined to comment further.
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