Become a Business Professional By Studying A BA Degree

Do you want to build a career in business? Do you aspire to work in a leadership position? Then a career in business administration (BA) is just right for you. It will allow you to explore your skills and abilities and build a booming career in the world of business. Let's take a look....

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BA is a vast career area which includes a wide array of leadership and management roles. Every organisation, whether large or small, needs skilled and trained administrators to make operations more effective and accomplish business goals. If you are a self-motivated and organised individual, then you will surely succeed in powerful environments. As you will know how your business works and be able to deal with stress, you will be able to expand your business.

What is the role of a business administrator?

Being a BA professional you need to deal with day-to-day operations and implement long-term business plans. You will need to work as a leader and a manager by taking care of various aspects related to a business. You can surely find a wide range of career opportunities across different industries as administrators are required in each and every field. 

As a business administrator, you will need to - 

• Set & implement organisational & departmental policies, procedures & goals
• Manage and monitor the budgetary & financial activities in your organisation 
• Adopt new technologies effectively in the workplace
• Supervise general activities of the business related to products & services
• Approve and/or negotiate agreements & contracts
• Collaborate with other managers, board members and employees
• Evaluate sales reports & other financial statements
• Assign tasks to managers & department heads
• Find ways to reduce costs and boost performance, productivity & profits

What career options are available? 

As a business administration professional you can get an array of leadership, administrative and management roles in public, private and non-profit organisations. You can also opt to work as a operations manager, business analyst, marketing specialist or human resources generalist across industries. In fact, you can even choose to become an entrepreneur & start your own business.

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 You will have several employment options in business administration and numerous opportunities to create a thriving and lasting career. Here are some of the common job opportunities available to BA professionals-

• Chief financial officers
• Chief information officers
• Chief operating officers 
• Chief sustainability officers 
• General and operations managers

What do you need to start a BA career?

The fact is to start a BA career you will need to earn a recognised BA degree or diploma so that your prospective will know that you possess all the necessary skills and knowledge required for the job. However, studying a full time BA degree means a heavy investment of both time and money, resulting in a crippling student loan and a delayed start to your career. Is that what you want?

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 If you ask me, one of the best solutions available for you is to pursue an accredited online BA top up program. This will help you gain comprehensive knowledge and skills needed for strategic planning, managing personnel resources and organisational leadership. Moreover, you will also gain a clear understanding of how a business works which will empower you to guide your business towards success. Moreover, as online top up BA courses are highly flexible and affordable, you can easily opt to work and study at the same time without making your bank account empty.

One of the greatest benefits of studying a BA top up is that it will fast track your BA degree and advance you to the final year for an MBA programme from an associated degree. This will allow you to earn a higher qualification and further boost your employability. As you will be able to earn a business degree, you will surely get the best job opportunities in the field of business and build your dream career without any hassle. 

What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions with us by commenting below.

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How NSFAS Can Help ‘Missing Middle’ Students In South Africa

The value of higher education cannot be underplayed as it is essential not only for personal development, but also for overall economic growth in countries worldwide. Hence, every government make sure that it takes all the necessary steps to improve the state of higher education and make it accessible for everyone, whether rich or underprivileged.

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Perhaps, it is for this reason the Higher Education Department in South Africa is currently searching for helpful ways that will enable it to offer funding to learners who are from families with too much family income to become eligible for the NSFAS (National Student Financial Aid Scheme), but not adequate enough to financially support tertiary education. 

Funding ‘missing middle’ students

Dr. Blade Nzimande, Minister for Higher Education and Training in South Africa, recently spoke about the issue while speaking at a media meeting in Parliament to announce the appointment of Sizwe Nxasana, outgoing FirstRand CE, as the chairman of the scheme. He said that the problem could result in unwanted and corrupt practices at the financing sphere. The Higher Education Minister claimed that many students who are unable to meet the funding criteria of the scheme often look for fraudulent means to access it due to their desperation. 

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The high demand for education is currently overtaking the allocated cash meant for the education funding scheme, even though the government is providing more finance to it in the last 5 years. The scheme receives an adequate portion of the entire budget of the department, which is at around R39 billion for 2014-2015. From this amount, the state funding vehicle received about R9.5 billion and it is predicted that the amount will increase to R46.3 billion in 2017-2018. But the department is currently guessing that this evident funding gap in higher education, especially at university level, through the 2016 medium-term expenditure framework may be around R35 billion. 

Coping with challenges

However, the distribution of loans for the scheme’s has become the central reason for aggressive student protests in various college campuses across the nation in the past few years as a result of the lack of funding. According to Dr. Nzimande, the students who are considered the so-called “missing middle” are children whose family income is more than the benchmark of the scheme, presently set at R122,000 per year. These students realised they were trapped in a rather desperate situation. 

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He said “I have asked (the scheme) to look into this issue. I am told the report was submitted on Monday. It’s ... your ordinary civil servant. Your teacher, your nurse, your police (officer) who are earning slightly more than (R122,000).” More details about the report regarding how the “missing middle” students may receive funding will become available once further discussions are conducted with different government stakeholders.

Need for identifying corruption

The South African Higher Education Minister recently said that the department was unable to identify how widely corruption had spread across the scheme, “but we have a lot of anecdotal evidence.”

Dr. Nzimande added “We need to tap into that.... We hope that Mr Nxasana’s background is even more of an advantage, particularly to reach out to business to make additional contributions.”

What do you think? Add to the discussion by commenting here. We would love to hear from you. 

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