Postgraduate Diploma in Management

The purpose of the programme is to provide practising managers with the knowledge and skills necessary to make policy and strategy decisions in their organisations. This will enable them to manage effectively with a complex and uncertain environment in the future.

The programme aims to

• Provide learners with a practical, work-related orientation, which draws upon a sound theoretical base
• Provide learners with frameworks within which a broad understanding of the underlying disciplines and functions of management are examined
• Provide learners with a holistic view of organisations, their environment and functioning; through an interdisciplinary and issue-based approach to learning
• Recognise that learners, as managers in both private and public sector organisations, need to be able to deal with a rapidly changing environment
• Increase the capability of learners to contribute to organisational and managerial effectiveness by developing their general competence, and in particular, their ability to contribute at the strategic level in private and public sector organisations
• Emphasise the importance of team-work by learners have a deliberate focus on the development of personal skills and competencies by learners in their special field of expertise, but also in other areas of management
• Attract participants from around the world, but especially from elsewhere in Africa, and develop an international ethos which recognises the need to understand the demands of a dynamic global environment
• Attract visiting academics, research and speakers from commerce, the public sector and politics

Matric Exemption or Equivalent

Bachelors Degree

• Demonstrate an advanced understanding of strategic management and information management, and will have been allowed to study further in elective modules, and the learner will have prepared a research report in the field of management which will act as an integrative module which allows the learner to draw together knowledge across management fields.
• The modules in the qualification re-enforce the interconnectedness of the various management disciplines.
• Learners will be sensitised to moral and social responsibility issues as these effect the management function.
• Gained a holistic view of organisations, their environment and functioning which reference to both private and public sector organisations.
• The learner's capacity to contribute to organisational and managerial effectiveness will have been increased by the development of their general understanding of management and by emphasizing training to build capacity to deal with a rapidly changing environment.
• The learner will gain experience of teamwork by being required to participate in team assignments.

• Demonstrate critical thinking as applied to business situations, and can make connections across disciplines.
• The learner will be required to demonstrate knowledge of management practice and the interconnectedness across management disciplines by preparing case studies and participating in business simulations.
• The learner will be required to show an understanding and application of quantitative methods in the preparation of assignments by the use of quantitative methods in case studies and through examination.
• The learner's ability to integrate knowledge will be demonstrated in the compulsory research report which is based on the learner's own research and which cannot be submitted until the learner has completed two years of relevant employment.

Integrated Assessment

The University of Natal is currently reforming its assessment strategies to include the assessment of applied competence for each qualification. In the meantime, a combination of continuous assessment and traditional written examinations serve to assess the integration of all / most of the learning outcomes for each module in a qualification.