Unisa online - Unisa's SBL partners with the Bureau of Public Enterprises

The Unisa Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL) has been awarded the contract to provide educational training services to the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in Nigeria. This programme is offered in collaboration with Benefit Advisory Research (BAR), an organisation which provides an economic and statistical analysis service to industry, with a particular emphasis on the financial sector. The programme kicked off on Monday 29 September 2008 at the SBL campus in Midrand, Gauteng.

The customised training programme, which runs over a period of three weeks, is fully sponsored by the World Bank. The World Bank is an internationally-supported bank which provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries, with the stated goal of reducing poverty. Together with this global organisation, Nigeria's BPE aims to enable senior managers in the public sector to better manage the country’s public institutions.

According to Dr David Abdulai, CEO and Executive Director of the SBL, the effective management of the country’s institutions is a condition for its growth and development efforts. One way of achieving such a goal is to capacitate the requisite senior officials who will drive this process. This strategic management training programme, offered to senior level officials of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), is a step in that direction.

The programme will include topics such as communication for effective supervision, marketing and strategies for investment in the private sector, team dynamics and team building, leadership and organisational dynamics, project management, public private partnerships, public sector governance and public finance management.

The expected outcome for the senior-level officials who attend this programme is for them to put into practice the knowledge gained from this programme in their respective organisations and places of work. Due to the emphasis on experiential and adult learning models --- and not necessarily theoretical issues --- challenges specific to Nigeria and good practices from other countries are used as part of the programme content. One of the participants, Modupe Abiodun-Wright, made the following comment about the programme: "It is such a well-structured strategic management training programme that has direct impact on the Bureau’s job processes and is comparable to the very best institutions anywhere in the world."

The SBL is proud to be involved in a project of this nature, as it is committed to providing quality leadership and management training to the rest of the African continent, which is in line with the university's vision to be the African university in service of humanity.