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Blended teaching pattern behind ADWC growth

ABU DHABI - Some 800 students from the Abu Dhabi Women's College (ADWC) were placed in public and private sector enterprises in the last year, with some 700 other students being enrolled in continuing education programmes within the college, showing the phenomenal leap in educational and work opportunities for UAE national women students, the Director of the ADWC, has said.

Briefing newsmen at an appreciation function for 100 local employers and Press, held at the Abu Dhabi Hilton Hotel, Dr Nicholas Gara thanked the local business community for all the support they had offered to the ADWC during the academic year, including the 800 valuable work placement opportunities, support at college events and programme advisory activities.

Dr Gara noted that the college had grown in leaps and bounds, citing 1999-2000 statistics, when 1,220 students in total were enrolled in the college, as opposed to 2,440 students in 2003-04. The number of returning students had also increased from 741 in 1999-2000 to 1,660 in 2003-04 in just the second semester.

Dr Gara, in a presentation, explained that of the 2,440 students at present, 56 were in the Certificate Diploma programmes, 18 in Diploma programmes, 13 were Foundation students, 24 were Higher Diploma students, and nine were degree students.

He noted that an additional 120 were in Work Readiness programmes, while 12 were involved at the Military Nursing programme of the Zayed Military Hospital. The ADWC has graduated 1,490 students from 1992 to 2002, he said. He added that with a total of 32 rooms, in the next year it would be possible to take in another 288 students.

The director revealed that the ADWC's continuing education division was increasingly finding favour among different enterprises in the capital, offering a spectrum of ICDL, IT, Financial Services and Human Resource Management programmes, tailored to meet individual or corporate needs.

He said ADWC now had 25 programmes across four levels - Business, IT, Education, Communication Technology and Health, with nine new programmes, four at the degree level, being introduced this year.

He said the focus in ADWC, as opposed to several other colleges in the region, was not on completely online learning, but on blended learning, integrating face-to-face instructions with independent computer-based learning, he said that at present 39 courses were blended, while nine were completely online.

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