This benefit allows people to continue working alongside their course, within their role and industry, and makes programmes accessible to those who live too far away to visit a campus regularly, or who cannot commit to set days a month.

Students take online MBAs for a variety of reasons, though flexibility and convenience are most-cited. In today’s fast-paced working world, this method of teaching can really appeal to potential students. Online education can offer great benefits that an on-campus MBA cannot provide. The best online MBA programmes offered today are arguably just as good as those delivered on-campus and can prove a better fit for a number of students. However, as time goes on, these technologies continue to evolve and broaden capacity, ever improving the standard of online learning. In the 2018 online MBA ranking from the Financial Times (where, to rank, Schools must have provided a programme for a minimum of three years) only 20 business schools were featured. However, there are still many well-known business schools that do not offer online programmes. Since then, more institutions have decided to offer their own online MBA programmes, having noted the benefits they can bring, not only to students, but also to the Schools themselves. It was not until 1994, when access to the internet became widely available to the public, that the first online MBA programme was launched at a business school. We have seen education delivered via radio, television and now, in the present day, it can be delivered via online platforms. Since then, as technology has rapidly evolved, so has the way distance learning has been provided. In fact, in 1892, the University of Chicago became, arguably, the first provider of distance learning when it offered correspondence courses at centres outside its actual campus. Online MBAs offer flexibility and diversity that benefit both Schools and students, writes Vlerick Business School’s Steve Muylle.

Virtual learning environment