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Education for Directors –a necessity, not a choice
Margaret O’Brien
The Centre for Corporate Governance at UCD was established in 2002 in response to the need for education and training for board directors in Ireland.
Professor Niamh Brennan, Director of the Centre argues that education for board directors is a necessity, not a choice.
The Centre for Corporate Governance provides a wide range of courses to meet the needs of board directors, from short morning-only courses, to customised courses for company boards, through to our popular one-year, part-time Diploma in Corporate Governance. All programmes are designed to help directors better understand their duties and responsibilities.
While the structure of the various programmes has remained fundamentally the same over the years, bar some tweaks and improvements along the way, interestingly, Professor Brennan said that the learning experience for participants can be quite different, particularly for those on the one-year Diploma programme. Based at UCD Smurfit School, the Diploma, which takes place on two evenings per week, over two twelve-week semesters leads to a UCD qualification in corporate governance.
“One of the key values of this programme is to encourage debate amongst participants, as part of our action learning approach. In filling a class, our emphasis is on quality not quantity because what the “students” bring to the mix is an important part of the programme. We ensure that participants have significant business experience and consequently they have plenty to contribute, particularly within the context of class interaction and debate.”
“This approach adds a valuable practical dimension to the course content and offers a useful insight into the day-to-day governance of organisations,” added Brennan.
In addition, the Centre also invites seasoned company directors to share their experience with participants. “The inclusion of input from people who are currently directors in the corporate world ensures our courses offer a depth and expertise not replicated in any other corporate governance course in the country,” claimed Brennan.
With financial and state sector reforms high on the Government’s agenda, corporate governance issues continue to take centre stage in Ireland. However, Brennan is yet to be convinced that we have truly learned lessons or turned any major corners in terms of our attitude to corporate governance in Ireland.
“I worry that our fixation with historic problems in the financial services sector may result in us taking our eye off the ball with regard to other sectors. We have to learn lessons and apply them more broadly, rather than focus totally on one sector.”
Our national culture plays an extremely influential role on how we implement corporate governance standards. As Brennan pointed out, “We shouldn’t need to be forced, kicking and screaming, to do things properly, our cultural disposition should see us want to do the right thing, without resistance She lamented, “If only people had crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s instead of adopting a ‘nudge nudge’ ‘wink wink’ approach in recent years, we would be in a much better place now. We were too complacent during the Celtic Tiger era and perhaps too arrogant. We need to work hard to do things the right way from now on.
We have a reputation in Ireland for trying to get around regulations rather than address regulations and we need to repair that”.
For its part The Centre for Corporate Governance at UCD clearly educates people on what they need to do to be good directors, from a regulatory point of view, but also from a practical business point of view.
While the Centre offers a choice of programmes on-campus it also provides customised courses for company boards both on- and off-site. These courses are tailored to suit a specific board, and are held when and where they want it, covering the topics of their choice.
Brennan believes passionately that training is critical if we are to avoid the corporate governance errors of the past. “What we need is a Continuing Professional Development standard, it’s what is required by the majority of professional bodies these days and it should be a requirement for board directors too”.
For further information on the Diploma in Corporate Governance and other programmes visit: www.corporategovernance.ie
