By Linda Anderson and Kester Eddy
Financial Times, London, UK, Feb 23, 2004

"There are now three other MBA schools in Kiev, so we have pretty stiff competition," says Oksana Kukuruza, public relations manager at IMI Kiev. "However, our total intake [on the MBA programme] is 111 students this year, similar to the last three years, in spite of a 20 per cent increase in course prices to $7,900 [?4,175]."

Despite costing the same - a fortune for most Ukrainians - the EMBA course had 120 applicants, of whom 16 were accepted, all entrepreneurs or chief executives of domestic companies.

With 15 years' experience in running MBAs, the demand is no surprise to Bohdan Budzan, IMI-Kiev director-general. "We approached a lot of business owners and top managers with our proposals for management training needs for their employees. We have often felt many people do not know what managerial knowledge they lack. So we designed a product to meet their requirements," says Prof Budzan.

Ukrainian businessmen are beginning to understand that managerial practices based upon the Soviet style administrative methods are ineffective, and that their operations must compete in an international business environment. To have any hope of success, they need to take on the best western practices, adds Prof Budzan.

"Companies such as Obolon Brewery, Aval Bank and AVK Confectionery asked us for management development and allocated a budget for these programmes. Even in the late 1990s this would not have happened," he says.

Taught in Ukrainian, Russian and English, the course comprises 16 three-day modules over two years. For some students, even the first module has been a revelation in how to teach business skills.

"From previous experience economics has been very academic and dull. . . but the professor asked us to share our real experience in the model of how we evaluate company performance," says Slava Avramenko, managing director and owner of BravoTex, a wholesale company supplying furniture manufacturers. Students work out criteria for optimum performance and see how to make decisions for a real company.