Northshore proves its worth
1) The education landscape has become quite competitive with so many foreign university affiliations thrown in as a reason to be the preferred option? How does Northshore win in this race for competitive market share?
It is true that the higher education market place has become very competitive. However, Northshore considers this competition to be irrelevant because of the type of programmes offered and the quality of delivery. As we are in a niche market, the market share of the private higher education is not a concern for us.
We have chosen higher education as our market segment, but within which we have the target market of parents and students who look for recognition of the degree pro- grams and creditability of the institutes offering them. Within this target market Northshore has established itself as a leading institute having affiliations with few prestigious universities in the UK and Europe.
2) Can you elaborate on the programmes you offer, and how does it prepare youngsters to fulfil the job needs that employers require?
We have quite a few specializations on offer, which range from engineering, information technology to business management. Based on the employment opportunities in the job market, it is possible to list the highly sought after programmes as BEng (Hons) / MEng in Civil Engineering BEng (Hons) MEng in Electrical & Electronic Engineering BSc (Hons) in Software Engineering BSc (Hons) in Business Administration All of them are professional programmes, meaning that students areable to find employment as soon as they passout from the university.
3) What additional services does Northshore provide its students to ensure they get the proper guidance as they enter the corporate world?
We are quite different to other higher education institutes when it comes delivery of programmes. All at Northshore College recognize, while quality teaching is very important, what matters at the end is learning. With this in mind we have many additional services to support our students while learning the skills necessary for their chosen professions. Some of these include, academic counselling, pastoral support, mentoring and career guidance. Our lecturers have experience at state and private sector Universities and therefore, they can identify specific needs of individual students to help them complete their study programmes successfully.
In addition, the management takes all the efforts to provide the students with a conduciveand friendly environment suitable for their studies and extra-curricular activities. All in all, Northshore College ensures that the graduates produced at the institute are exactly what the industry needs and that they can take up any challenge of their profession from the day one of their employment.
4) How about the stability of the institution? Who is behind the project?
Northshore College is backed by a group of educational philanthropistswho do not think education should be just another business. The huge investment in the insti- tute itself testifies this fact and the investors have other lucrative businesses that make it possible to consider Northshore College as purely a service oriented organization. It is true that any business, service or otherwise, at the end of the day needs to be profitable and make a return on the investment. However, the investors are more interested in sustainability of the College rather than making money.
Irrespective of making profits or losses, the College has existed in the higher education arena of the country for more than five years so far and all our competitors believe that Northshore is going to be one of the leading and prominent education institute in the country. This alone is sufficient as evidence for stability of Northshore College.
5) Any new areas of focus for the future?
We have linked up with a prestigious European university to offer MBA and other programmes in areas such as fashion design, digital marketing, hospitality & tourism and risk management. These programmes will be on offer from early 2017.
In addition, we have recently embarked on another venture to offer cost effective study programmes. The College has recently introduced SQA (Scottish Qualification Authority) HND programmes in Business and Software Development to cut down the costs by substantial amount so that more students can graduates from Northshore College in the future.