Business link-up creates top MBA

The University of Queensland has established unique links with one of Australia's biggest business schools in Melbourne and with the Singapore Institute of Management.

In a national first for business education, the university signed a partnership agreement with Melbourne's Mt Eliza Business School, which has been associated with Monash University for the past six years.

The Mt Eliza school will retain its independence as a privately run business school but will draw on the UQ's resources to offer an "advanced four-quarter" MBA. The school's students will have access to UQ's online library, rated the best in Australia.

The MBA degree can be taken over one year full-time or up to three years part time. Students who enrol at Mt Eliza will receive tuition from UQ academics and will be awarded a Queensland degree whose testamur will refer to the Mt Eliza school. Students in both Melbourne and Singapore will have an online component to their courses, as well as face-to-face teaching.

UQ vice-chancellor John Hay said the partnership with the Mt Eliza school showed that state boundaries in Australia were becoming increasingly irrelevant.

"As a member of the Universitas 21 network, we could have formed links with an overseas business school or set up our own private wing," Professor Hay said. "But I think it is more exciting to go beyond state and sectoral boundaries within Australia."

He said that under the agreement, Queensland would assume responsibility for overall academic standards and its faculty would assist with teaching of the MBA course.

"Mt Eliza is Australia's largest high-quality private provider and its work complements what we are doing so this will result in increased contact between staff at both institutions," Professor Hay said.