NUS BUSINESS School's Asia-Pacific Executive Master of Business Administration (Apex) programme has been ranked 20th in the world in the Financial Times EMBA 2008 survey.

The school said yesterday this is the third time the programme has made the top 30. It was 29th in 2006 and 30th in 2005.

Professor Bernard Yeung, Dean and Stephen Riady Distinguished Professor of Finance at NUS Business School, said: 'The top 20 listing has always been dominated by US and European schools. We are very pleased that NUS Business School is the first business school in Singapore - and one of the very few schools in Asia - to make the prestigious list.'

Besides a strong showing overall, the Apex programme was also listed among the world's top 10 in specific categories. It was ranked sixth for 'International Students' and seventh for 'International Course Experience', reflecting the diversity of its students and the proportion of the programme conducted outside Singapore.

The programme was ranked ninth for 'Work Experience', which measures the experience of participants.

Participants in the 17-month programme are senior executives from different countries. Classes are in six segments, held in six countries across Asia.

NUS Business School said it was one of the first schools worldwide to introduce this modular, multi-country, executive MBA format for senior executives. It also said its graduates enjoyed a 73 per cent increase in post-graduation salary.

The FT ranking evaluates EMBA programmes based on 16 criteria: salary today, salary percentage increase, career progress of alumni, work experience, aims achieved, women faculty, women students, women board, international faculty, international students, international board, international course experience, languages, faculty with doctorates, FT doctoral rank and FT research rank.

This article was first published in The Business Times on October 29, 2008.