The Singapore (SMU) Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB) has become one of the youngest institutions in the world to be conferred the prestigious EQUIS accreditation, bringing it to the ranks of leading business schools around the world, such as the London Business School in the United Kingdom, IE Business School in Spain, IMD in Switzerland INSEAD in France.
Awarded by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), the accreditation covers all programmes offered by the from the undergraduate degree up to the Ph.D. level.
“We are extremely proud to have built up the school's global standing in a short span of eleven years since our establishment in the year 2000. The EQUIS accreditation, together with the AACSB accreditation which we had attained earlier this year in April, is testimony of the fine quality of our programmes faculty, as well as the strong value proposition that we offer to current and prospective students,” said Professor Howard Thomas, Dean of SMU LKCSB.
“It takes a great deal of determination and self-assessment to achieve accreditation, which, in itself, is a rigorous process of evaluation and review. To be able to attain a five-year accreditation demonstrates EFMD's strong confidence in the holistic nature and high quality of our undergraduate and post-graduate programmes,” Professor Thomas added.
According to EFMD, an institution is awarded an EQUIS accreditation for a period of five years (versus a three-year accreditation period) if it is assessed to be good in all the EQUIS Standards and excellent in some. There are 21 business schools in Asia which had attained the EQUIS accreditation, only five had achieved five-year accreditation – SMU LKCSB being one of them.
The EQUIS accreditation is synonymous with high international standards of quality, a significant level of internationalisation and professional relevance to the corporate world. An accredited institution not only exemplifies innovation in all respects including programme design and pedagogy, it also an effective learning environment that promotes the development of students' managerial and entrepreneurial skills, and fosters their sense of global responsibility.
Professor Julio Urgel, the EFMD Director of Quality Service said, "We are delighted to welcome the Singapore Management University Lee Kong Chian School of Business into the EQUIS community. Accreditation from EFMD is one of the best and most complete ways to certify the actual quality of a business school as accreditation involves an extensive self-assessment by the school, the visit of an international review team who spend several days interviewing many different people in the School, and finally a very experienced jury evaluating the assessment and findings of the review team to determine whether the School should be granted accreditation. There are currently no substitutes for such an in-depth assessment of quality and the new schools should be commended for their commitment to excellence."
Caption: Singapore Management University Lee Kong Chian School of Business one of the youngest universities in world to be EQUIS-accredited
Caption: Singapore Management University Lee Kong Chian School of Business
Caption: Singapore Management University Lee Kong Chian School of Business offers undergraduate, master's (including MBA and EMBA) and doctoral programmes
About SMU LKCSB
SMU commenced its curriculum in 2000 with the School of Business, which welcomed its pioneer cohort of students in August 2000. In 2004, the Lee Foundation contributed S$50 million to SMU in honour of the late Dr Lee Kong Chian, a well-known Southeast Asian businessman, philanthropist and community leader. In recognition of the Lee Foundation's generosity, SMU named in perpetuity the School of Business, the building and the university-wide scholars programme after Dr Lee Kong Chian.
Today, LKCSB is a dynamic Asian business school with more than 2,500 students and over a hundred full-time faculty members with postgraduate degrees from renowned universities such as Cornell, Harvard, INSEAD, Oxford, Stanford and Yale. The school offers undergraduate, master's (including MBA and EMBA) and doctoral programmes and is affiliated with a number of research centres such as the Institute of Service Excellence and the Centre for Marketing Excellence.
About EFMD
EFMD advances excellence in management development in Europe and worldwide by building links between leading business schools and companies, creating and disseminating knowledge on best practices and changing trends and providing access to benchmarking tools and accreditations (EQUIS, EPAS, CEL, CLIP). With more than 750 member organizations from academia, business, public service and consultancy in 82 countries, EFMD provides a unique forum for information, research, networking and debate on innovation and best practice in management development. www.efmd.org/equis