Case Study

Description:

At the beginning the case study talked generally about the Higher Colleges of Technology and their success through the years. After the case introduced 3 different thoughts about the Higher Colleges of Technology; each thought was different from the others; for instance the first thought by Hamdan talked about how learning in the Higher Colleges of Technology is better than the other institutions. While the second by Khalid thought mentioned that the other institutions will be ahead of the Higher Colleges of Technology. Yet the last thought by Imad said that each institution has its own duty to develop the UAE’s education.

Higher Colleges of Technology study the requirements of the society then they apply it in their curriculum. Higher Colleges of Technology also established many partnerships with national and international Universities and companies such as Oxford University, Cambridge University, IBM, Siemens and so many others.

Introduction:

My case study is about higher education in the UAE. The Higher Colleges of Technology were established in 1988 by Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mabark al Nahyan. Currently Higher Colleges of Technology is one of the largest institutes of higher education in the UAE; it has 17 campuses throughout the country and each gender has a special campus .There are more than 20 thousand students and 2000 staff in the campuses. Higher Colleges of Technology provides in its campuses all that the students might need like parking lots, food courts, places to study, prayer rooms and security. HCT’s library has a lot of books, magazines and films that the student can borrow; it also has an electronic library version that has more than 40,000 electronic books and 36,000 electronic newspapers and magazines. HCT does all that to build an ideal student that contributes to the development of the UAE. 

Body:  

The Higher Colleges of Technology provide different degrees such as Diploma, Higher Diploma, Bachelor and Master’s Degree. The Higher Colleges of Technology contain various kinds of majors such as Engineering, Business, IT, Health and Science, and Media. There are other places that offer more courses like Zayed University. The learning design of Higher Colleges of Technology is “Learning by doing”. Learning by doing means that students gain knowledge and experience by their performing a variety of tasks. All programs in Higher Colleges of Technology use English language with some subjects in Arabic and the majors are serving our society in industry and governmental departments. Although most of the biggest companies in the UAE send their employers to complete their education at Higher Colleges of Technology, such as ADNOC, Emirates Steel, NPCC and the Ministry of the Interior. The Higher Colleges of Technology provide teachers with a high performance in education throughout the world because it is vocational and there are competitors. In each major they have specific sections for learning; for example in  the Electronic Engineering Lab there are a lot of electronic devices and components which help students practicing. Safety is the most important aspect in a lab. Health is still the most important aspect in teaching. Students who study Bachelor degree and Higher Diploma do internship for eight weeks; internship is giving the students experience in their majors.

Therefore Hamdan supports the Higher Colleges of Technology model because it is vocational. However, Khalid thinks that other institutes will be ahead of the Higher Colleges of Technology, for example Zayed University; the mission of Zayed University is the new student orientation program aims to welcome new students and their families to Zayed University and to facilitate their transition to university life. The program is intentionally designed to engage new students in intellectual, cultural and social activities that help them to make meaningful connections with their peers, faculty and staff, and integrate them into the ZU community. Another example is AAU; the mission of AAU is The Admission and Registration Unit seeks to organize the admission and registration processes for AAU students and follows up their educational affairs from the moment of their admission until their graduation. The Unit emphasizes compliance with the AAU applicable regulations and the confidentiality of the students’ records. Imad thinks each educational institution has a different task for education in the UAE. 

Conclusion:

To conclude, Higher Colleges of Technology is one of the most popular govermental institutions in the UAE. Its branches almost spread all over the country. According to the three graduate thoughts, HCT has a different learning style from the other institutions, but I agree with Hamdan because Higher Colleges of Technology uses the latest teaching methods such as learning by doing, which helps the student to feel like he’s out of pressure, as well as it always seeks to provide the healthy decent life inside its campuses.