Digital education: First hand experience
I AM SURE a lot you share with me the thrill that usually comes with learning something new. But with our jobs, families and social lives that consume the very last minute of our days and nights, a lot of us are finding it difficult to find the time and energy to acquire new knowledge.
This article is not about time management though — it is about digital education. I am currently taking two courses, one in philosophy and one in critical thinking with the University of Edinburgh — ranked 16 in the UK according to the Complete University Guide. I am taking these courses through coursera.org, the phenomenal online education platform that is providing more than 200 courses, from 62 universities based in 17 countries, and to more than 2.8 million global students. And don’t be surprised when I tell you, it is all for free.
Nowadays, the shift in the way education is provided and ingested is real. The closed learning environment that is based on a professor standing behind a podium and giving lectures is shrinking. The classrooms of today are filled with interactive media, and usually recorded to be available online. Emails and discussion forums are replacing office hours.
The good thing is that Saudi universities do not seem to be far behind, many of them are providing distance-learning programs. And recently, a university that is solely awarding distance-learning degrees was established. Nevertheless, what is really striking as both weird and amusing in all of this, is that our Ministry of Higher Education still does not recognize any certificate issued out of distance learning programs even if that certificate is issued by a top ranked university in Europe or United States.
I have had a first-hand experience in this. I completed my MBA through a distance-learning program provided by the University of Leicester — ranked 20 in UK according to The Complete University Guide. Although I cherish the memories of five years I spent studying for my bachelor degree at KAU, I can affirm that my two years of experience at the University of Leicester were richer in so many ways. The professors were clicks away.
I was part of a study group that met two or three times a week on Skype with students from the UK to the Caribbean. The university granted me access to huge libraries and databases, taught me how to be a disciplined researcher, and how to sweat and work hard to be entitled for a postgraduate degree.
And that enabled me to complete academically sound research to acquire the degree, which I completed with Merit. Despite all that, the MoHE does not recognize such degrees in comparison to local degrees that are usually earned through doing homework and a pile of summarized booklets.
The availability of information, the type and level of education needed these days is different than those needed 10 years ago. The opportunities provided by such programs are endless. The rhythm of change in education, and anything touched by modern networking for that matter, is speeding away from the inflexibility of traditional models.
A lot of money is spent on education in Saudi Arabia; yet you can feel that there is something missing: vision and quality. Vision to select a path ahead and stick to it, and quality to confirm that the results we reached are the goals we started with.
Email: saad@aneyeonsaudi.org
