Stansfield Business School, now in Chennai
"We chose Chennai as it has very good infrastructure, a pool of talented people and is closest to Singapore
Bringing the experience of Singapore and London to a B-school in Chennai .This is the avowed ob- jective of Kannappan Chettiar, who heads the Singapore-based educational enterprise, Stans field Group. In the process, he has turned into the largest over- seas investor in education, at least in fitis part of the country.
Western ambience
Last month, Stansfield annomced its arrival in the city, buying up a good piece of real estate on the arterial Anna Salai and converting it into a Rs. 25- crore state-of-the art complex Alongside, it has brought in the ambience of a Western B-school
Future plans
The group is investing about Rs. 500 crores in setting up 20 international business schools in India, starting with its corporate headquarters in Chennai "We chose Chennai as it has very good infrastructure, a pool of talented people and is closest to Singapore," says Mr. Chettiar.
Back in the city-state, the group runs the Singapore Insti- tute of Commerce and the Stans field School of Business. Most importantly, its undergraduate and post-graduate programmes are those of the University of London In India, the group will run all the 20 campuses it plans to establish by 2008 under the Stansfield School of Business name.
The School has been permit- ted by the London School of Eco- nomics to conduct UG courses after an inspection visit by the director for external study. Students can study the entire three-year undergraduate de- gree in Chennai or just the first year and transfer to over 20 UK universities for the second and third year. The School will also offer postgraduate and undergraduate courses from other interna- University of New Brunswick nomics, Banking and Financetionally reputed universities.
"We will be offering the Uni- versity of Western Australia M.Ed degree considered to be top in Australia," says Mr. Chet- tiar. The group plans to spread its wings across Hyderabad and Bangalore. In Chennai, already a few hundred students have enrolled both for undergraduate and post-graduate programmes.
Recently, 100 Chinese students Law Economics, dents enrolled for courses in Ac- counting Information system and Busi- year graduate entry to B.Sc. in ness studies. New programmes from NUS, Business, Management, (Canada's oldest university), RMIT-Australia and Murdoch University are being added in the current year.
Courses offered
The courses offered include a standard three-year B.Sc. degree in Mathematics and Economics, Business, Management, Man- agement with Law, Computing and Information Systems, Ac- counting and Finance, English Other courses offered by the and Philosophy. business school include two-and Accounting with Law.
Initial offer fee
While the examination pro- cedure has been streamlined by the British Council, eval- uation will be done by a team at the London School of Eco- nomics. The initial offer fee is Rs. 5 lakhs for the three-year course (and also for the four-year LT programme). The School at 22, Patullos Road, can be reached on 55230000.
