UK eUniversities Worldwide (UKeU) held a breakfast at the Michelangelo Hotel yesterday morning to introduce itself to the South African public.
UKeU is a UK government-backed company that has been created to deliver UK university education internationally over the Internet.
"This was saying to the South African public, 'we are here, we want to engage with you and this is the beginning of the process`," says Anton Barnett-Harris, UKeU international business manager for SA. "Students can already enrol through the Web site, but this launch was to meet with the players in SA, from government to private players."
UKeU currently has no South African students, and is entering into discussions with South African government. "We need to engage with government so that we can work through all the proper procedures and quality assurance processes," says Barnett-Harris.
Through a carefully considered business model, UKeU hopes to overcome the failures that e-learning has delivered in the past.
"E-learning has in the past failed to deliver what it promised in the last decade," says John Beaumont, UKeU CEO. "It requires a large upfront investment, so people wanted to make money quickly, and just couldn`t. Expectations of what was to be delivered could not be satisfied, and e-learning deserved its poor reputation in the past."
He explains that the UK government became concerned that different universities were investing in e-learning, but didn`t have enough of a budget to get them properly started. Government invested lb62 million (around R700 million) in jump-starting the project.
"UKeU is not itself a university," says Beaumont. "Students can study online from established universities and get degrees from that specific university. UKeU is a business, it is a market leader, what is being presented is what academics want. We source modules and courses to satisfy international demands."
UKeU has partnerships with various institutions, including Nottingham, Cambridge, Middlesex and Hertfordshire universities. It offers courses, degrees and modules in areas such as geographic information systems, biomedical science, computer science, business information systems, business management, and tourism and travel management.
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