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18 January 2022 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied
Prof Andries Stulting
Prof Andries Stulting, who obtained an MBA at the age of 73, believes it is a great privilege to be able to be useful in your home, community, and workplace and to add value to your own life and to the lives of other people around you in an effort to grow and to keep your mind active.
Prepare, act, adapt, and conquer. The MBA qualification that Prof Andries Stulting, former Head of the DDepartment of Ophthalmology at the University of the Free State (UFS), obtained from the university at the age of 73, taught him about the importance of these four aspects in the marketplace. 

Bridging the gap

Although an ophthalmologist of note who has changed the lives of hundreds of patients over the years, working as the Hospital Clinical Manager at a private healthcare facility in the Northern Cape reminded Prof Stulting that he had a gap in his knowledge of finance, economics, and budgets. He took this position as Hospital Clinical Manager after his retirement from a career of 31 years at the UFS. 

“I was capable of solving the clinical problems of the private practitioners working in the hospital. But when management had budget meetings or discussions on making the hospital more profitable, I was at a loss of words and completely out of my depth,” he explains. 

Prof Stulting says he enjoyed the MBA course. “I enjoyed being a student again and to work with a younger generation of people who accepted me as part of their group. Although it was a challenge for me to learn how to work online, how to submit assignments online, and how to listen to the endless Zoom conversations, I learned a lot about modern technology from my younger classmates.”  

He believes the MBA is a huge commitment, and his advice to prospective MBA candidates is to start within yourself. “Ask yourself if you are prepared to balance your current job and your part-time studies for the next two years of your life; to stretch your boundaries beyond what is known to you, and to leave your comfort zone; for your mind to be stretched; and do you have a supporting family or group of friends?” 

A defining moment

Besides the day-to-day classes, operations, and research, Prof Stulting trained 47 ophthalmologists during his career at the UFS, served in several management positions, including as member of the Executive Committee of Senate and acting head of the School of Medicine, was named Bloemfonteiner of the Year in 1996, and received an Honorary Degree from the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. 


But where did it all start?

He recalls that while doing his two-year internship after qualifying as a medical doctor in 1973, he gave the anaesthesia for a corneal transplant operation at the Military Hospital in Pretoria. “For the first time in my life I was exposed to an eye operation! I was so intrigued by the micro-surgery being performed through an operating microscope that I almost forgot to wake the patient up after the operation! That was one of the defining moments in my life,” he says. 

Making a difference

Prof Stulting says he still takes pleasure in seeing people with eye problems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was strange for him at first to work with ‘masked people’. “However, one of the good things about the pandemic was that we, as eye-care practitioners, have learned to listen better to our patients and customers and to spend more time with the patient than before the outbreak.”

He strongly believes that it is a great privilege to be able to be useful in your home, community, and workplace and to add value to your own life and to the lives of other people around you in an effort to grow and to keep your mind active.

Reading and the near future

Acquiring an MBA is not the end of the story of his career in academia. Prof Stulting is already looking forward to doing a PhD degree on leadership in the health-care environment, while he still wants to continue practising in what he calls the queen of specialities, namely ophthalmology.  

And when he is not studying or enabling more people to experience the wonder of sight, he loves to read – both fiction and nonfiction. Some of the last books he has read include Thinking the Future by Clem Sunter and Mitch Ilbury (unfinished), Mercy (David Baldacci), Viral (Robin Cook), Over My Dead Body (Jeffrey Archer), and The Midnight Lock (Jeffery Deaver). “I also enjoy motivational books by Robin Sharma, John Maxwell, and Ken Blanchard,” he adds. 


News Archive

MBA Programme - Question And Answer Sheet - 27 May 2004
2004-05-27

1. WHAT MUST THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE (UFS) DO TO GET FULL ACCREDITATION FOR THE MBA PROGRAMMES?

According to the Council on Higher Education’s (CHE) evaluation, the three MBA programmes of the UFS clearly and significantly contribute to students’ knowledge and skills, are relevant for the workplace, are appropriately resourced and have an appropriate internal and external programme environment. These programmes are the MBA General, the MBA in Health Care Management and the MBA in Entrepreneurship.

What the Council on Higher Education did find, was a few technical and administrative issues that need to be addressed.

This is why the three MBA programmes of the UFS received conditional accreditation – which in itself is a major achievement for the UFS’s School of Management, which was only four years old at the time of the evaluation.

The following breakdown gives one a sense of the mostly administrative nature of the conditions that have to be met before full accreditation is granted by the CHE:

a. A formal forum of stakeholders: The UFS is required to establish a more structured, inclusive process of review of its MBA programmes. This is an administrative formality already in process.

b. A work allocation model: According to the CHE this is required to regulate the workload of the teaching staff, particularly as student numbers grow, rather than via standard management processes as currently done.

c. Contractual agreements with part-time staff: The UFS is required to enter into formal agreements with part-time and contractual staff as all agreements are currently done on an informal and claim-basis. This is an administrative formality already in process.

d. A formal curriculum committee: According to the CHE, the School of Management had realised the need for a structure – other than the current Faculty Board - where all MBA lecturers can deliberate on the MBA programmes, and serve as a channel for faculty input, consultation and decision-making.

e. A system of external moderators: This need was already identified by the UFS and the system is to be implemented as early as July 2004.

f. A compulsory research component: The UFS is required to introduce a research component which will include the development of research skills for the business environment. The UFS management identified this need and has approved such a component - it is to take effect from January 2005. This is an insufficient element lacking in virtually all MBA programmes in South Africa.

g. Support programmes for learners having problems with numeracy: The UFS identified this as a need for academic support among some learners and has already developed such a programme which will be implemented from January 2005.

The majority of these conditions have been satisfied already and few remaining steps will take effect soon. It is for this reason that the UFS is confident that its three MBA programmes will soon receive full accreditation.

2. WHAT ACCREDITATION DOES THE UFS HAVE FOR ITS MBA PROGRAMME?

The UFS’s School of Management received conditional accreditation for its three MBA programmes.

Two levels of accreditation are awarded to tertiary institutions for their MBA programmes, namely full accreditation and conditional accreditation. When a programme does not comply with the minimum requirements regarding a small number of criteria, conditional accreditation is given. This can be rectified during the short or medium term.

3. IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE ACADEMIC CORE OF THE UFS’s MBA PROGRAMMES?

No. The UFS is proud of its three MBA programmes’ reputation in the market and the positive feedback it receives from graduandi and their employers.

The MBA programmes of the UFS meet most of the minimum requirements of the evaluation process.

In particular, the key element of ‘teaching and learning’, which relates to the curriculum and content of the MBA programmes, is beyond question. In other words, the core of what is being taught in our MBA programmes is sound.

4. IS THE UFS’s MBA A WORTHWHILE QUALIFICATION?

Yes. Earlier this year, the School of Management – young as it is - was rated by employers as the best smaller business school in South Africa. This was based on a survey conducted by the Professional Management Review and reported in the Sunday Times Business Times, of 25 January 2004.

The UFS is committed to maintaining these high standards of quality, not only through compliance with the requirements of the CHE, but also through implementing its own quality assurance measures.

Another way in which we benchmark the quality of our MBA programmes is through the partnerships we have formed with institutions such as the DePaul University in Chicago and Kansas State University, both in the US, as well as the Robert Schuman University in France.

For this reason the UFS appreciates and supports the work of the CHE and welcomes its specific findings regarding the three MBA programmes.

It is understandable that the MBA review has caused some nervousness – not least among current MBA students throughout the country.

However, one principle that the UFS management is committed to is this: preparing all our students for a world of challenge and change. Without any doubt the MBA programme of the UFS is a solid preparation.

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