I was at a conference of South American business schools last month where one of the hot topics was how important it is, particularly in developing economies, for business students to learn about government policy and the broader context of business as well as accounting, marketing and strategy.

How ironic, then, that the Chinese government, at exactly the same time, banned its officials from accepting scholarships on executive MBA programmes – MBAs for working managers. In a move designed to beat corruption, the government has barred “l(fā)eading cadres” in the Communist party, the government and state-owned enterprises from signing up for costly business training unless they have official approval and pay the fees themselves.

Talking to those who run EMBA programmes in China, it is clear there are some practices that need to be publicly stamped out. In particular, there is a custom endemic in some business schools to give full scholarships to government officials and then effectively use those officials as a marketing tool to attract students from the commercial sector. The concern is that the business people attend the programme specifically to make contact with the officials – contacts they can turn to their advantage in the future.