More online students can now study for an international Bachelor’s degree at IBA

For several years, IBA International Business Academy has worked closely with Leeds Beckett University to offer high-quality international degree programmes.

That partnership is now being expanded, creating new opportunities for anyone who has completed upper secondary education and would like to pursue an international Bachelor’s degree focusing on management and international business. The new programme is delivered entirely online.

“Until now, IBA’s international Bachelor provision has been based on the top-up route, where students already have two years of higher education behind them. We are now opening up a route where students can begin directly after completing upper secondary education,” says Oksana Jørgensen, Director of E-learning at IBA.

She explains that for some time IBA has seen interest from people who would like to study for an international Bachelor’s degree online, but who did not have the previous higher education required to enter a top-up programme directly.

“With the new programme, we can now offer them a complete Bachelor’s degree,” says Oksana Jørgensen.

The new English-language programme – BA (Hons) International Business Management – is designed as a part-time online degree, allowing students to continue working and fit their studies around their everyday lives.

The programme consists of 20 taught modules and concludes with a Research Project. Students can adapt the pace of their studies and choose how many modules they take at a time.

Teaching is primarily asynchronous, supplemented by online webinars and opportunities to interact with lecturers. The programme is taught in English and leads to a British BA (Hons) degree awarded by Leeds Beckett University.

The target group is broad. It may include young people with regular full-time or part-time jobs, but also people whose working lives do not follow a conventional working week, such as athletes or those working in aviation. What they have in common is a desire to develop academically and professionally while remaining in employment.

“The idea is that students can find time to study in the evenings or at weekends – perhaps while sitting at an airport waiting for a flight. You can use periods like these to study,” says Oksana Jørgensen.

The new Bachelor’s degree joins IBA’s existing portfolio of international degree programmes offered in partnership with Leeds Beckett University. Since 2018, the partnership has included online Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes.

“Our partnership with IBA has undoubtedly grown much stronger in recent years. IBA may be a smaller partner than some of the institutions we work with in countries such as Vietnam and India, but that does not make the partnership any less important to us. We value having a variety of approaches to teaching, and this works very well in our partnership with IBA, which offers our programmes as an online option,” says Dr Sukky Jassi, Course Director at Leeds Beckett University.

IBA will also continue to offer its existing top-up programme for students who already have relevant previous higher education.