Lagos — For the second consecutive year, the Financial Times of London has ranked the Lagos Business School (LBS) among the top 50 business schools worldwide, in the area of Open Enrolment Executive Education Programmes.

The 2008 ranking which was made public on Monday, has the LBS moving some notches up the ladder, compared to last year.

The Financial Times (FT) ranking, rated number one by the business environment, last year included the LBS as the only business school from an African country (outside South Africa ) within the top contenders. This year, the school scored higher than many well-established and well-funded business schools all over the world. Notably, only one business school in South Africa has scored higher than LBS.

When it began this ranking in 1999, the Financial Times became the first publication to produce an integrated global ranking for executive programmes. This is why the business community sets great store to its rankings especially as its rigorous standards is common knowledge. The selection process takes all of 12 months and involves the sifting of thousands of data, especially from third-party sources. The media body conducted interviews with participants in the LBS open-enrolment programmes, chief executives of employing Nigerian and international companies where the school's alumni work and many other academic and business sources. The end result was a ranking adjudged by all to be the most objective.

FT bases its method on the theory that there is a global market for the top graduates of these international business schools, hence the rationale behind publishing globally integrated rankings, which is not limited to a specific geographic region. This worldwide ranking helps recruiters of labour and students to select programmes and managers.

Eugene Ohu, of the LBS, Pan-African University Press Office, said in a release that, " This new FT recognition has cast world spotlight on the Lagos Business School and by extension to Nigeria as a whole. We are grateful in a special way to the LBS alumni, the Nigerian business community, our partners in building this 'oasis of sanity', and indeed all Nigerians because of this recognition that benefits the entire nation."