Sharjah-based Capital University College saw enrolments boom as it shifted to purely digital learning in March when the coronavirus pandemic hit the UAE.
This increase was led by professionals looking to upskill, with a 400 percent increase in that category of learners, said the college’s co-founder and director Sanjay Batheja.
In a wide-reaching interview with Arabian Business, Batheja talks about how online education widened their pool of learners and about the costs involved in shifting education online.
Sharjah-based Capital University College, co-founder and director Sanjay Batheja
How did Capital University College adapt to remote learning when the coronavirus first broke out in the UAE in March?
For us, e-learning was always there. Prior to Covid, in our MBA and Bachelor programmes, we would have video content to support what the students learned in class. Now, this content is the class itself and we have some live sessions with students on Zoom or Microsoft Teams to reinforce what they’ve learned and understood. So the mechanism is still the same, it is just that the backseat passenger has become the driver.
What categories of learners does the college cater to?
We have three categories of students. When we started 20 years ago, we were targeting mothers who wanted to upskill, after they had taken time off from the workforce to be with their children, and that category is still going strong for us today.
The second category is the high school graduates working on their bachelor degrees.
The ultimate category is the people who are coming from the companies, meaning those who are working full time and want to invest in upskilling in the weekend.
Have you seen growth in these categories in 2020?
All three categories saw an increase in learners last year but especially in upskilling where we have seen a growth of almost 400 percent. Previously, I would have an average of 40 MBA students per programme but today I’m registering close to 150.
Before Covid, students who were in Saudi Arabia, for example, would take a diploma course in their country. Today, thanks to this whole interaction we’re having online, they’re very comfortable sitting online with a teacher and listening to her or him wherever she or he is.
So we’ve seen that inflow where I’ve even got students from Bangladesh, which was never on my map before. We’ve got learners from Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya as well.
This is thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. People say it’s a bad thing, and I agree, but there’s opportunity there as well, you know.
Students earning the degree with Capital College can be assured of an internationally accredited and recognized qualification
When you made that switch to online last year, what were the main challenges you faced?
Luckily for us, because of my background in technology and instructional design, I knew what kind of cameras we require, the infrastructure we need etc. For example, my classrooms today resemble production studios where you have the green screens and the trainers come in and they have spotlights all over them.
Then, we recruited more people to do the post-production. For that, we use simple software which is very user-friendly but the output is amazing.
The challenges were literally where to store the videos so nobody steals them. We could not put them on YouTube because today anybody can download it from there. So we found other software where you could pay a little more and save the video. I think that was the only challenge, if at all.
In terms of investment, how does this compare to the budget for in-class learning?
Look, I will tell you something, there is an investment in anything you do.
A learning management system costs of thousands of dollars while agencies typically charge between AED8,000 to AED10,000 for a one minute video so imagine what that is like for us producing close to 6,800 hours of content.
There’s a lot of money that goes in but the benefit is reusability. It’s a one time cost and then that content can largely be re-used because fundamentals don’t really change much year to year. So if you see it from this perspective, it’s a huge benefit.
Some subjects need more physical interaction or training than others. How do you deal with that?
In February, we had a lot of students in Saudi Arabia who wanted to study interior and fashion design online so we developed a diploma programme in Arabic for those two areas of study and then in March this whole pandemic happened.
We recruited 600 students for the online interior design diploma and attracted learners from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and North Africa. What’s more, we retained a big percentage of them who are now doing advanced diplomas with us.
We have also managed to have an online fashion design diploma which involves courses in pattern cutting, fashion illustration and so on.
To make these work remotely, we rely on virtual communication platforms like Zoom for Q&A sessions to reinforce the video lessons and we pass on relevant software we get for free, such as AutoCAD (a commercial computer-aided design and drafting software application) for our students to use.
Capital College is operating in the UAE since 1998
Do you see interest in online learning decreasing as more people get vaccinated?
The KHDA in Dubai had already approved re-starting physical lessons since May 2020 so we are already running classes in the classrooms.
But I noticed one thing: because of the move to remote learning during the pandemic, students realised that they had better interactions online. For example, in a normal class, you have three-hour lectures where the teacher is doing all the talking.
Online, the same three hours of content has to be compressed to forty minutes because there is no way you can talk for three hours and retain people’s interest; this also has to be supplemented with other things they can see on their own time. So the students like the idea that they’re putting in fewer hours and getting more out of it.
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