Recently, the School officially passed the international re-accreditation of the Business Graduates Association (BGA) of the United Kingdom and was awarded the Gold accreditation certificate with the maximum five-year accreditation period. This is the second time that the School has won the high recognition of an authoritative international institution for its education quality, talent training system and level of internationalization after it first obtained the BGA Gold accreditation in 2023, and it is also an important development milestone in the School’s deep cultivation of top-notch innovative talent training in new business studies.
In early June, the BGA international accreditation expert panel carried out a two-day on-site visit and comprehensive assessment of the School. The panel was chaired by Professor Mar Vila, former Vice Dean of ESADE Business School in Spain, and its members included Professor Steef van de Velde, former Dean of Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands and Chairman of the AMBA&BGA International Accreditation Advisory Committee, Professor Wang Chongming, Director of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Center of Zhejiang University and AMBA&BGA International Advisor for China, and Mr. George Iliev, Director of Accreditation of AMBA&BGA.
During the assessment, the panel held many thematic discussions with university leaders, the School’s leadership team, the faculty group, the model program team, employer representatives, alumni representatives, student representatives and administrative staff, and visited and inspected teaching and research facilities on campus. It conducted a comprehensive examination and integrated assessment of the School’s construction results in recent years from multiple dimensions such as talent training, discipline development, teaching support, program management, social service and industry influence.
On the first day of the assessment, the panel held talks with Professor Hao Zhifeng, President of Shantou University. The two sides had in-depth exchanges on topics such as the university’s globalization strategy, the integration of AI and digitalization into teaching, and the training of future leadership talent.
President Hao Zhifeng gave the panel a comprehensive introduction to the university’s development layout of being rooted in local Chaoshan, empowering the development of eastern Guangdong, connecting with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and running the school in an open manner oriented to the world. He also stated that the university will, based on local resource endowments, continue to advance the development of new business studies, actively explore interdisciplinary talent cultivation models, and promote discipline innovation, talent training and regional industrial needs to resonate with each other at the same frequency.
The next day, the panel held talks with the leadership team of the School. On behalf of the School, Dean Liang Qiang delivered a thematic report to the panel, systematically reviewing the School’s practical results in discipline layout, reform of the talent training model and its responsibility in regional social service. Liang Qiang pointed out that the School will take this re-accreditation as an opportunity to anchor itself to the development cycle goals of the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, continuously raise the level of internationalized education, further refine the characteristics of new business talent training, deepen industry-education integration and international exchange and cooperation, internalize international accreditation standards into the whole process of program development, curriculum innovation and faculty development, and feed the high-quality development of the regional economy back with high-standard business education.
The panel also held many discussions respectively with the heads of the model programs, faculty representatives, employer representatives, alumni, current student representatives and administrative staff representatives. In accordance with the BGA Gold re-accreditation standards, they fully exchanged views on topics such as student internships, employment and competency needs, curriculum design and teaching methods, international exchange and corporate cooperation, and lifelong learning and career development, so as to gain an overall understanding of how the School is run.
At the end of the assessment, Yu Hong, Vice President of Shantou University, and the leadership team of the School attended the accreditation feedback meeting together. At the meeting, the panel fully affirmed the School’s construction practices and development results in recent years. The panel commented that the School, by deeply tapping the commercial cultural heritage of the Chaoshan region and closely following the characteristics of regional economic development, has accumulated and formed unique educational advantages in discipline development, faculty team building, talent training innovation and internationalized education practice, and that its pioneering exploration in AI-empowered business education is particularly forward-looking. The panel highly recognized the School’s development strategy of “rooted locally, reaching the world, strengthening characteristics, and creating first-class”, and expected the School to continue to advance the building of high-level internationalized business education and to become an excellent business school with outstanding regional demonstration influence.
Vice President Yu Hong expressed sincere gratitude to the panel for its professional and rigorous assessment guidance. Yu Hong pointed out that the Business School’s participation in high-level international accreditation is an important part of the university’s overall coordination of the high-quality development of its disciplines as a whole. The university will continue to advance the connotative development of new business programs, promote construction through evaluation, consolidate construction results, and steadily advance the further improvement of its level of internationalized education.
The smooth passing of the BGA re-accreditation and the obtaining of the maximum five-year accreditation validity this time mark that the building of the international business education quality system of the School has entered a brand-new stage. Taking this as a new starting point, the School will rely on the location endowments of Shantou as a provincial sub-central city and the abundant international resources of the Chaoshan hometown of overseas Chinese, firmly implement the development strategy of “rooted locally, reaching the world, strengthening characteristics, and creating first-class”, improve its talent training system, further integrate into the global collaborative network of business education innovation, strive to build a first-class business school with distinctive characteristics and a prominent degree of internationalization, cultivate new business talent with both a global vision and a sense of social responsibility, and contribute educational strength to national and local economic and social development.
Introduction to the Business Graduates Association (BGA)
The Business Graduates Association (BGA) is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom, and was founded in 1967. It aims to lead the global movement for change in business education, focuses on responsible management practices and lifelong learning, and expects to bring positive impacts to students, the economy and society. Its Continuous Impact Model (CIM) is an important benchmark for measuring the quality of global business education, covering six major elements, namely training objectives, alumni achievement, value creation, academic effectiveness, ecosystem and social contribution. It is an authoritative quality accreditation and service institution in the field of global business education.
