CASE STUDIES

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COLLEGE MITROVICA 

Industry: Education (HEIs)

Period covered: 2013 - 2015

Published: 2016

Updated: 2022

Organization: SPARK International (NL)

Website: www.ibcmitrovica.eu

BACKGROUND

IBC-M is an independent higher education institution founded by the Dutch non-governmental organization SPARK in March 2010. It was established with donations from Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swiss Development Cooperation, the UK Government Department for International Development, the European Commission and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Kosovo.

The college operates campuses on each side of the ethnically divided (Kosovo-Albanian and Serbian communities) town of Mitrovica. Until today, Mitrovica is the epicenter of tensions between both communities.

IBC-M was first registered in the Netherlands and in Kosovo, but in March 2018 it was registered as an independent not-for-profit educational foundation in Kosovo, under the umbrella of the Ministry of Public Administration and licensed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Kosovo. Its current donor is European Union. Its status as not-for-profit educational foundation has allowed IBC-M to operate as an independent International Business School under the Kosovo Higher Education Law.

IBC-M is accredited by both German Accreditation Agency Evalag (Evaluationsagentur Baden-Württemberg) and the Kosovo Accreditation Agency (KAA). The college offers bachelor as well as master degrees.

IBC-M operates in cooperation with the University College Lillebaelt from Denmark and University of Applied Science VIKO from Lithuania to award students with double diplomas and degrees.

CHALLENGE

My duty at IBC-M was head of college (Rector, Direktor). When I took over this responsibility in 2013, the college had just completed it's first development phase since inception: Establishing the college within both communities and setting up college curricula and body. This first phase also included the preliminary German accreditation by Evalag (German accreditation agency).

At the same time, by 2013 the college was challenged by incoherent product and pricing policy, leading to student protests and to damages for the reputation and positioning of the organization. Also, it became obvious that the ambitious financial sustainability model of the college was hard to achieve.

SOLUTION

Together with the IBC-M team, during my term from 2013 to 2015, we achieved the following:

• Regaining trust: Substantially improved positioning and reputation within the communities;
• Fostering market orientation among college staff (both management and academic);
• Re-structuring pricing policy; cost reduction;
• Stabilizing operations and management, and focusing the sustainablity strategy;
• Full Evalag accreditation, after initial preliminary accrediation;
• Initiating and establishing business services and business network events, linking the college to the business communities in Kosovo, Northern Kosovo as well as Serbia;
• Initiating international collaborations and networks in Academia.
  

MITROVICA INNOVATIONS EVENT