About the Wits Business School

Mission statement:

To equip Africa's business leaders to create African prosperity, by developing core business competencies for developing economies through innovative interaction informed by locally relevant and globally significant applied research and development.

Summary list of all degree qualifications and main programmes offered by the school:

• PhD
• Master of Business Administration
• Post Graduate Diploma in Management
• Management Advancement Programmes and various other certificated and attendance programmes that fall under Executive Education

Status of the School

The Graduate School of Business Administration, otherwise known as the Wits Business School, (WBS) was established in 1968. Until 1992 the school operated as a separate faculty within Wits University. In 1992, the school of Public and Development Management (P&DM) was founded and both WBS and P&DM operated as independent schools within the Faculty of Management. In January 2001 both schools were integrated into the new Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management together with the School of Economic & Business Sciences, the School of Law and the School of Accountancy.

The prime mission of the School is to establish and maintain excellence in scholarship in business management, through the promotion of research and teaching, in the various disciplines that fall under business management. The School has an excellent reputation as a provider of academic and executive education.

The School is entirely postgraduate in nature, but offers an extensive range of certificate and executive programmes to experienced (but not necessarily graduate) executives.

The WBS academic faculty is drawn from a number of nationalities including Sweden, Great Britain, Germany, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ireland, USA and Madagascar. Approximately half of our academic fulltime staff is non South African. Our visiting faculty is primarily based in the United States, but we have representation from several other countries.

The WBS has a dedicated International Office which looks after all international exchanges and partnerships and is headed by Prof. John Luiz.

Administratively the office is headed by our International Programmes Co ordinator Karen Trent, who handles all administration and acts as the Student Exchange Coordinator. Gerda Whiteman handles outgoing International Business Study Tours and Charisse Drobis deals with incoming International Business Study Tours. The Director of the WBS International Office is a member of the Schools Management Committee and participates in all executive decisions. This office works closely with both the Academic Office and Executive Education. In addition the University has its own International Office. The University's International Office handles registration and health insurance. All other functions are handled by our internal International Office. Prof. John Luiz also sits on the University's International Policy Committee, which is Chaired by the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University and provides a forum for the WBS to make input on internationalization.

On the WBS campus we have accommodation to house 20 international students at any one time and if the need requires, we can always seek additional accommodation with the University's Residence Office, which oversees more than 4000 residential places in 21 residences.