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Applicants of Executive MBA surge in Singapore

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-06 14:05

SINGAPORE: As the economy slows, senior executives and managers in Singapore are enrolling themselves in the Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) courses.

At the Nanyang Technological University's Nanyang Business School, its associate dean Nilanjan Sen said that applications for Nanyang's EMBA programs have surged by around 25 percent this year, said Monday's reports from the local English newspaper Straits Times.

According to Sen, although companies are cutting costs, counteracting that is the upper and middle management who want to take part in the EMBA program while they still have job security. Most EMBA applicants are, if not fully, sponsored by their companies.

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For EMBA programs at French business school Insead, which has a campus in Singapore, enrollment for the Tsinghua-Insead EMBA program - which combines international business education with a focus on Asia - is up 50 percent from last year.

A spokesman for the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School's EMBA's program said:  "In general, applications have risen. However, the past year since the financial crisis struck has also been a challenge, since EMBAs are considered 'luxury goods' and companies have cut back on training.

An EMBA program can take about 15 to 21 months, depending on the school you go to, and can take you around the world. For example, Insead's program is taught in Singapore, Fontainebleau and Abu Dhabi.

The program is also a "modular one" where students would not need to spend all their time on campus and would therefore not need to quit their jobs during study. Classes are also intimately sized, and are typically made up of middle and upper management employees of both large and small companies, and entrepreneurs.