Many mid-career Chinese businessmen and women have enrolled as weekend graduate students in the International MBA Program at southern China's Zhongshan University.

The program is taught in English with original teaching materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T). The intensive program requires students to spend the entire weekend at the university, and to study on their own more than eight hours every weekday.

These weekend graduate students believe that the sacrifices are well worth it. Ms Hu Guihua, who works at the Guangzhou branch of Hang Seng Bank, is a class of 1999 MBA student. She said that most of the students in her class are working for large companies in a wide variety of fields, and that therefore she has learned a lot from study groups and group discussions. She believes that this program will teach her many concepts needed for modern entrepreneurship.

The introduction of the weekend MBA program is Zhongshan University's new approach to continuing education, and is the result of adjusting the educational structure to meet the needs of society. The number of weekend graduate students at this university is currently 2,800.

Zhongshan University also offers graduate programs for those who study in their spare time. These programs offer master's degrees in business administration, justice, and administrative management, and graduate courses in computer software and computer applications to train people for the industry. The university offers other kinds of graduate courses as well.