Alan Tudge wants new products in international education – this looks like one

The university and the US $44bn revenue global tech service and consulting company are combining to offer a bized degree and short courses for a global market.

Their joint venture, the Innovation Academy in Digital Business will launch a Uni SA bachelor degree in digital business in June, followed by “practical upskilling” PD programmes, featuring “tailored digital business training modules.”

The degree programme will sell to Australians for the Commonwealth Grant Scheme rate, although it seems Uni SA is over-enrolled in business for federal funding and will forego the modest gvernment contribution. The digital business degree will be taught on-line via the Uni SA platform.

The short-courses will be jointly developed, with a case-study approach to suit Accenture’s enormous global client base and presumably its 569 000 workforce, (including 150 000 in India).

Apart from Accenture’s research and course content arrangement with MIT, the ten-year Uni SA deal is said to be its first education partnership, and follows two-years of talks and six months of product development.

It’s a signature project for Uni SA VC David Lloyd, who started and conducted discussions and was central to the content creation.

This is a big win for Uni SA – it could be transformative, creating an international education product designed for people who want recognition of a globally recognised skill-set but can’t afford to travel to internationally. And while many of them may not have heard of Uni SA a bunch of them will know about Accenture.

Back in March Education Minister Alan Tudge called on HE providers to diversify their products and customers. “The global on-line e-learning market is forecast to grow from $130 billion to more than $470 billion by 2026. This growth is driven by students around the world seeking lower-cost education, as well as greater flexibility in how and where they learn,” he said.

Uni SA-Accenture looks like what he has in mind.