Alena Aliakseyeva, a university lecturer from the city of Vitebsk, Belarus has become a driving force in introducing innovative business education practices at her home institution, Vitebsk State Technical University (VSTU) after benefiting from multi-faceted business education and training activities co-sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other foreign donors.

USAID has partnered with Eurasia Foundation and the New Eurasia Establishment (NEE) to enhance the professional capacity of the business education community in Belarus since 2006. The projects have engaged several local business schools in adopting international business education standards through summer schools, master classes, conferences, information exchange, the development of printed materials and network-building.

“Apart from equipping me with practical tools, these projects showed how much space I have for creativity in my work and how much there is to be learned,” Aliakseyeva said.

After utilizing international methodologies to improve more than 20 business courses at VSTU, Aliakseyeva was selected as a member of the national team of business educators to receive training at the European Case Clearing House in London to develop and teach business case studies and models through workshops. The training program provided her with firsthand access to the largest collection of case study materials in the world, and empowered with the knowledge and skills to lead case study workshops for dozens of business education professionals from Minsk and other regional cities, as well as to develop Belarus-specific business cases to be introduced into the nation’s business education sector.

In 2011, within a USAID-supported small grant project, Aliakseyeva brought together three large Vitebsk retailing and manufacturing companies and Vitebsk University faculty to work on case studies. Three cases in logistics, human resource management and marketing have been developed by the university team and were introduced into the school’s curriculum.

In January 2012, VSTU carried out a competition among students to identify the best solutions for the cases developed. The contest attracted applications from 14 universities and business schools from all over Belarus.  As a result, one of the Vitebsk companies, which contributed to the case studies’ development, has adopted some of the solutions to optimize their business processes, and has invited the two top competition participants to complete an internship at the company.

Dozens of VSTU graduates now have similar opportunities to secure internships at the city’s enterprises based on a partnership agreement signed with other businesses. College students across Belarus will be soon able to use the national database of business cases that Aliakseyeva plans to develop with her fellow educators in the near future.