Dubai varsity looks to Kerala for enrollment of students

With Dubai positioning itself as a regional destination for education, the University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD) is currently looking more towards Kerala to enroll students from the state for its various courses.

As part of the drive, UOWD has lined up plans to visit cities in Kerala this year to interview and select students.

"We also plan to participate in some regional exhibitions at Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram and Kottayam this year," Jay Jayatilaka, manager, marketing and external relations, UOWD, told Business Standard. The UOWD will launch its road shows on February 23 and 24 in Kochi .

Adding that UOWD will be investing considerable resources in Kerala to attract quality students to the university, Jayatilaka said, "A vast majority of our Indian students are from the southern cities of Chennai, Kochi and Hyderabad. This is probably because south Indian students are better prepared academically to meet UOWD's strict admission requirements and are more serious students than their northern counterparts. It is also because cities like Kochi have strong links with Dubai and there is a very large Indian support network in place to assist new arrivals."

On the encouragement from the part of Indian authorities, he pointed out that the government has been encouraging students to seek better educational opportunities overseas.

"In the past 10 years, several thousand Indian students have pursued education in Australia alone, making it a far more preferred destination for education than traditional destinations such as the US and UK. Being an Australian university located in Dubai , UOWD now offers the same Australian quality education closer to home," he said.

UOWD's parent university is the University of Wollongong, Australia.

The courses offered include UG and PG programmes in the areas of business and information technology, which are two high-demand areas in Dubai.

While courses in Business Administration, Commerce, Computer Science and Internet Science and Technology (E-Commerce) is offered at a fee of AED 125,000 each, fee for the MBA course has been fixed at AED 74,400.

The UOWD has also made provisions for convenient and easy payment so that students need not bear a heavy financial burden up-front, Jayatilaka added.