University of Dubai Sponsors AACSB Middle East

This year's Middle East and Africa Annual Conference of AACSB International, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), held in Dubai on October 21st - 22nd, and sponsored by the University of Dubai, was attended by universities from around the Middle East and Africa, where they explored management education trends in the region and provided participants with examples and best practices of leading university business schools. The AACSB accreditation is recognised around the world as a gold standard of higher education in business. Only about 5% of the world's business schools have the accreditation. AACSB sets high learning standards that must be met for the university to maintain its accreditation. These requirements drive a variety of factors that help set UD apart, from the calibre of faculty hired and the amount of research submitted to journals to class curriculums and the learning outcomes expected from students. AACSB requirements enhance the quality of education UD students receive and help the university maintain an international standard of academic excellence. Prof. Mohamed Ibrahim, Dean of UD's College of Business Administration, spoke at the annual conference about the value of AACSB accreditation, saying, "UD was the first university in Dubai to earn its AACSB accreditation in 2009 for its College of Business. We work very hard each year to maintain the requirements set by AACSB and we can see the results in our students - we have a 98% employment rate among our graduates and this is due in large part to our AACSB accreditation. Our students gain real-world knowledge through an applied curriculum that they take with them into the workplace and the intellectual contributions our faculty submits to international peer-reviewed journals outnumber many schools in the area. We see promoting the AACSB accreditation as part of our social responsibility and have proudly done so with other schools in the region." Last year, the University of Dubai helped two Iraqi universities finish a plan to earn their AACSB accreditation as part of a AED 1.8 million grant from USAID. D continues to help the universities in Iraq even after it fulfilled its requirements of the grant and is currently helping a university in Saudi Arabia and a university in India to earn their AACSB accreditations. "The University of Dubai sponsored this event because it believes international education standards like those set by AACSB are important and an effective way to ensure a quality education and raise educational standards around the region. When employers from around the world look at a student as a potential employee, they know exactly the kind of high benchmark the student met to graduate from an AACSB-accredited business school like UD," Prof. Mohamed Ibrahim concluded.