School’s in this summer at HCT

College’s 17 campuses to offer about 300 courses to help its students to either catch up or get ahead in studies.

Under its new summer programme, Higher Colleges of Technology students can take up to four courses, the equivalent of almost a full term’s work, to ease their study load over the year. Silvia Razgova Show more

DUBAI // The Higher Colleges of Technology campuses around the UAE are set to offer summer classes for the first time.

The college’s 17 campuses will run about 360 courses in subjects including Arabic, Emirati culture, human resources, engineering and maths.

Dr Abdullatif Al Shamsi, vice chancellor of the colleges, said the courses would be offered free to HCT students who were falling behind or wanted to finish their degrees early. The public could also enrol.

“Now we finish on May 12, which will leave around three months or so of summer break. We wanted to take advantage of the situation and offer summer courses,” he said.

The classes would be “mainly for our students to ensure they graduate on time or even earlier, and for those outside, to the local community.”

Because of heavy workloads the students face, they often have to cram several courses into a term to catch up and meet the graduation deadlines. During the summer, they can take up to four courses, the equivalent of almost a full term’s work, to spread out the load.

Dr Al Shamsi said this was a chance to help ease their burden.

For faculty, they will still get their summer break.

“We’ve broken the summer into summer A and summer B to ensure we always have staff to teach.”

Dr Ali Al Mansoori, director of RAK’s HCT colleges and deputy vice chancellor for campus operations, said easing the students’ workload was a major benefit of the initiative.

“We want to make sure they’re on track,” he said.

“A lot of our students in RAK are working, so with the commitments they have of commuting, of families, we know there are other circumstances that prevent people sticking to the plan. The summer courses are made for these people, as well as those who want to finish faster. We need to provide extra help to these students.”

Dr Tarifa Al Zaabi, director of Dubai Women’s College, welcomed the move.

“My students have been asking for this for a very long time now,” she said. “It’s an added value to their learning experience.”

Non-students who want to attend will have to pay Dh1,200 a course and they will not be able to gain formal qualifications.

“Maybe in future we’ll think about adding up the credits for a certification,” said Dr Al Shamsi.

All HCT courses are delivered in English. To qualify for summer courses, non-HCT students must have a high-school diploma and an English score of 5 in IELTS or the equivalent.

Register at summer.hct.ac.ae.