Two MBA programmes from Singapore universities are included in The Economist magazine's global ranking of top 100 business schools this year.

Nanyang Technological University's (NTU), Nanyang Business School (NBS) full-time Masters in Business Administration (MBA) programme is now ranked 71st in the world, having shot up 10 places compared to its 81st position last year.

The National University's NUS Business School remains at 89th place, similar to 2008.

Regionally, the Nanyang MBA now ranks sixth in the Asia and Australasia ranking, up from seventh place last year. NUS is ranked ninth, while the Melbourne Business School tops the region.

The Singapore Management University's programme, which was just launched last year, was not included in the ranking.

INSEAD, which also has a campus in Singapore, was ranked 23rd, but the French business school was not included in the Asia/Australasia ranking.

And the world's top business school? It is the IESE Business School from the University of Navarra in Barcelona, Spain.

Highest ranking by NTU

In a statement, NTU said that its 71st global ranking is the highest position achieved by the NBS' full-time MBA in The Economist's annual poll, and it has been included in its top 100 MBA listing every year since 2004.

"We are delighted at the news of the significant improvement in our MBA ranking by The Economist," says Professor Gillian Yeo, Interim Dean of NBS. "Together with our 24th position globally in the Financial Times' ranking earlier this year, our improved rankings are a strong endorsement of the academic rigour and relevance of our market-oriented programmes at our business school."

It says that the higher ranking is the result of improvement in three areas: provision of career opportunities for graduates, expansion of its alumni network, and the quality of faculty.

The Economist highlighted that its ethos is to look at business schools from the students' perspective. Based on its past surveys on why they decided to sign up for an MBA, the ranking criteria were the following factors: to open new career opportunities (35 per cent), personal development and educational experience (35 per cent), salary increase (20 per cent) and the potential to network (10 per cent).

The Economist's global MBA ranking now in its eighth year, reflect the prevailing conditions such as salaries, jobs available and the situation at a school at the time the survey was carried out in the second quarter of this year.

The magazine said that memory has been built into the rankings by taking a weighted average of three years to provide a rounded picture of the schools.