THE National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School has become the first in Asia to offer a prestigious Master's-level programme in management.

This is the year-long CEMS Master's in International Management (MIM) programme, targeted at those with the potential to take on senior international management positions. The Financial Times' latest annual ranking of business schools rated it the world's best Master's in Management programme this month.

CEMS, previously known as the Community of European Management Schools and International Companies, is a global alliance of multinational companies and leading business schools, including the London School of Economics and the University of St Gallen in Switzerland. The group draws its exclusivity from admitting only the top university from each of its member countries.

When the NUS Business School became the first in Asia to be added to its network of schools as a full academic member last December, it joined the 24 other schools in the alliance in offering the programme.

Students who take the course will gain extensive international exposure as they will spend the year in two overseas universities - a semester in each institution - in the CEMS network.

In that year, they will also intern at any of CEM's corporate partners, such as financial services firm JP Morgan and cosmetics and beauty company L'Oreal.

A spokesman for the NUS Business School said: 'We were selected following stringent assessment and validation by CEMS of the quality and rigour of our Master's in Management programme, and our academic standing and reputation as Asia's global business school.'

The school has three students enrolled in the programme this year, and hopes to raise the number to about 25. It is also running the programme for its first batch of 26 CEMS MIM students from countries such as Australia, Denmark and Italy, who are doing their overseas semesters here.

One of them is 24-year-old Franziska Korrmann from the University of Economics in Prague, who has been here since July.

She said of her 'wonderful' experience so far: 'Singapore is a major player in the world market and there are people all over the world living here. It is a great opportunity to see how the city works.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.