Boston City Campus remains serious about education.
There are so many messages out there that those looking to study become confused as to what a campus is truly offering. Boston has cut through the clutter proposing a message of integrity – we are serious about your education. It really is that simple.
“Students, whether school leavers or corporate, have become quite critical with education offerings. They are astute as there is so much knowledge available at their fingertips, so they make their choices wisely without being ‘dazzled by free gifts’. They are looking for an institution that will address their needs, their feelings, their financial situations as well as their attitudes.” So says Ari Katz, CEO of Boston.
Katz explains that while students are happy to study online, they still want human contact to assist with administrative as well as academic queries. “We ensure that the have this through our mentoring system”, he says. Students want quality certification of the skills they gain. They need industry recognition, and want to make use of international accreditation of their studies. “We addressed this by achieving international institutional accreditation through the British Accreditation Council. Local accreditation is through the CHE (Council on Higher Education). Skills specific accreditation is through appropriate examining bodies such as CompTIA” he says.
Katz quotes the Economist, saying that South Africa has the worst youth unemployment problem in the world.“Because of this harsh environment in which they find themselves, young people no longer believe that qualifications will guarantee them employment. Boston spent two years researching a way to provide a guarantee for when they graduate. The Graduate+ guarantee is a unique offering to Boston.”
During our research we did find that many students idolised the ‘overnight’ success stories, particularly of business people who did not gain a tertiary education. Yes – Richard Branson dropped out – but he had other factors going for him including a young entrepreneurial economy open to new ideas and challenges. The environment is far more treacherous these days to entrepreneurs, who will still need to understand a balance sheet, financing, marketing and other skill sin order to run their “overnight success”. You can find success in the Instagram and social media sphere (bloggers and influencers). But their success is short lived as it is not based on a living breathing business, a physical product or staff and colleagues.
Boston is continuously developing new curricula, maintaining liaison with corporate and industry, and assessing students and industry needs and demands in order to create a successful match between employer needs and skills produced by graduates. This is the only way to face the 4th IR head on – feed the monster and give it what it needs in order to grow!
The World Economic Forum predicts that “by 2020 more than a third of the desired core skill sets of most occupations will comprise skills that are not yet even considered crucial to the job today”. The Boston PG Dip tackles this problem by providing new AI and 4th IR skills, a social science way of tackling business challenges, making these grads the most suitable to lead companies into the new world of work.
Boston understands the needs of the 2020 student, and this is seen through the following:
- online, enabling any time anywhere study,
- Maintaining human contact through training advisors, heads of department and personal tutoring.
Boston maintain a liaison with industry to understand their needs, going so far as to adapt and edit curricula. This means that Boston graduates will be work ready and competent to contribute to the organisation from day one.
A student’s biggest fear is that they will be wandering the streets with their graduation certificate, seeking work. Boston’s aim is to ensure that our work-ready grads are confident, skills enabled and motivated to contribute meaningfully to their communities.
Serious about education, Boston now positions itself as a challenger, an innovator and a socially relevant brand.
“We think that your education provider should be an expert. Your qualification should be world-class. Your education experience should be consistent, quality and recognised” concludes Katz.
See www.boston.co.za for more.
