The Ford Foundation has awarded the Business School a $1.2 million grant to help support a training program for foreign students in Business Administration.

The money will go to the International Teachers Program, designed to train business teachers for underdeveloped countries. The program was established in 1958 and is the only one of its kind in the country.

The Business School will use the grant to make major changes in ITP:

* It will offer its first ITP fellowships.

* It will establish a series of courses to give foreign students background in the United States approach to business administration.

Previously, foreign students who wanted to enroll in the one-year program had to win fellowships from outside sources, such as the United States Agency for International Development.

With the Ford money, the School will finance 77 one-year tuition grants over a six-year period beginning in 1967-68, and 12 all-expense fellowships annually for five years starting in 1968-69.

Course Vital

The series of background courses will be a vital part of ITP, Robert B. Graham Jr., associate director of Public Information at the Business School, said yesterday. Many ITP students seriously lack understanding of the U.S. business administration trends, he said.

The proposed background courses will include concepts and methodologies of business education, psychology of learning, curriculum design, course development, student evaluation, preparation and use of teaching materials, problems of educational administration, and university service to the business community.

Since the program began, 230 students from 35 different countries -- three-fourths of them developing nations -- have participated.