Global Development

Second phase: Mass provider of technician training (1995-2002)

During their first 6 years, the HCT leadership, while ensuring highly selective admission to the Higher Diploma programs to maintain a strong reputation for the quality of programs and graduates, continued to emphasize the overarching objective of the HCT being an ‘open access’ institution for every eligible UAE national student who wished to pursue tertiary education.

With the number of secondary school graduates increasing every year and with the firm positioning of HCT as a top class higher education institution, by 1994, there was increasing pressure from the community for the HCT to fulfill its ‘open access’ mandate.
After a year of structured consultation with community stakeholders and internal curriculum discussions during the academic year 94/95, June 1995 saw the establishment of Certificate-Diploma (CD) programs open to all national school leavers who applied and put in place admission processes for these new CD programs. This resulted in a dramatic shift in the paradigm of education as well as resource management challenges for the Higher Colleges of Technology. The sudden increase in student enrollment can be seen from Figure 1 (Appendix I) that indicates an increase of 80% enrollment in 1995 over the previous academic year (3). From an institution of 2,300 students in June 1995, HCT had grown to over 16,000 students in 10 years.
HCT responds very well to the challenges presented by dramatic growth by adopting innovations in the design and delivery of appropriate curriculum and also in aggressively recruiting faculty from over 80 countries who are qualified to teach vocational programs with much more basic levels of academic knowledge and communication skills in English. HCT has established itself as an early adopter of technology in facilitating a flexible learning environment. Adoption of blended e-learning platforms in course delivery ahs not only ensured effective utilization of resources but also greatly improved student participation and learning. Close co-ordination with industry partners has also helped HCT created programs that equip graduates who meet industry needs.

Corporate sponsored training programs: CERT (1996-Present)

All operational costs of the HCT are fully funded by the UAE Federal Government through its annual budget plan. Fixed investments such as land, facilities and major equipment are the responsibility of the respective local emirate in which each college is situated. The UAE government is committed to a free tertiary level education for all eligible UAE national students who graduate from the secondary schools every year. The corporate sector has been keen to promote educational opportunities for national employees. To meet this need, HCT established a commercial, corporate training and consulting arm in 1996, The Centre of Excellence for Research and Training (CERT), and it became the needed cost-recovery, corporate, commercial arm of HCT.

In the early years, in addition to running short, continuing education courses for the community, CERT began to design, develop and deliver academic programs customized to meet the needs of specific clients such as the UAE armed forces, municipalities, oil & gas process Industries, the aviation industry, healthcare agencies etc. These sponsored programs would lead to HCT credentials such as a Diploma, Higher Diploma or Bachelor degree in specialist areas typically not available for general HCT students.
These sponsored programs offered ‘win-win’ for every stakeholder involved:

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  For the client industries, the ability to design the outcomes of these programs helped reduce training and development time periods such that these graduates were able to quickly become productive employees. With the guaranteed number of UAE national graduates coming out of these programs, these organizations were able to plan and implement their nationalization plans with confidence.
  

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  For students sponsored into these programs, there was typically a good stipend offered (in addition to free tuition support) for their studies. Also, these sponsored students were contractually guaranteed employment in the sponsoring company immediately upon graduation, thus removing any uncertainty in their minds and enabling the student to focus on his or her career path even while studying.
  
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  Since the costs of offering these programs were fully recovered from the client, HCT also has the opportunity to expand its program offerings in specialist areas relevant to local industry.
  

CERT is presently engaged in an ambitious plan to expand its operations and be actively involved in many other related commercial education, training and research opportunities within the UAE and the region at large. At present, over one thousand students and trainees are engaged in sponsored programs and courses at HCT-CERT and this number is likely to multiply several fold in the next two to three years.

Innovations in Teaching and Learning

From its inception, the HCT have been consistent in their expectations from the faculty and the students on hands-on active learning. Curriculum design and assessment have been based on learning outcomes and the delivery has always been learner-centered. Applied, hands-on, activity based teaching and learning has been encouraged and this forms the basis of recruiting and rewarding faculty members. 'Chalk and talk' lecture modes of delivery are strongly discouraged.

Small class size (15 to 20) helps faculty facilitate highly interactive and participative learning. The learning environment and curriculum design help integrate the delivery of theory and laboratory components of any course as traditional classroom layouts are set within labs, giving total flexibility to faculty to teach a theoretical concept for a few minutes and immediately get the students to apply and understand this through hands-on experiments in the same room.
Use of technology is strongly encouraged and facilitated as an integral and essential part of teaching and learning in all HCT programs. Most HCT campuses are now wireless-enabled and students are required to purchase high-end laptops before registering in the college. Thus, traditional computer labs have been eliminated as every learning space has become a potential computer lab with the help of the new, wireless campus. In addition, many learning spaces are equipped with electronic smart boards that enable faculty to write (and the students to download), to display PowerPoint and to access websites. Through video conferencing facilities, students and staff are able to connect with experts from around the world. Faculty members are encouraged to place all course notes and course information on a WebCT platform for effective and easy access by students through the internet. For the last few years, focused efforts have been made in designing and offering online courses with twin objectives: In the short term, to encourage directed self-managed learning among students as contrasted with teacher led traditional learning: In the long term, to offer fully online degrees for Diploma and HD graduates who are placed in far away, offshore or onshore sites without easy access to HCT campuses, to continue their studies. HCT has become a well known centre for pioneering work in eLearning as they bring together international eLearning experts and educators to discuss relevant issues through major international conferences. It hosts a biennial conference 'E-ducation without Borders' (4) and an annual 'e-Merging e-Learning' conference (5).
Where appropriate, project based learning (PBL) has become the norm, rather than the exception. To ensure that learners are able to integrate and apply concepts across different courses taken in the same semester or year, integrated projects are often designed by a team of faculty and formally assessed as part of every course taken by the learner. Many programs include a graduation project in the final year or final semester where students and faculty are encouraged to solve real-life industry/business based problems for this purpose.
Field visits and industry based 'sandwich' or co-operative programs (alternate semesters in the college and the workplace - taking structured training for credit towards a diploma or degree) are increasingly being incorporated in many programs particularly in the fields of engineering and allied health. Work experience/clinical placements/on the job training are included in the program structure as mandatory courses with clearly defined goals and learning outcomes that are jointly assessed by the faculty supervisor and the workplace supervisor.