Top UK varsity seeks tie-ups with Bahraini institutions

Manama : Bahrain students and corporate executives can look forward to benefit from world-class education and training programmes soon, according to the representatives from one of the leading universities in the UK who are on a brief visit to the Kingdom.

University of Derby’s International Recruitment Manager Martin M Binns and International Recruitment Officer Andrew Birchett will be interacting with business organisations and universities in Bahrain to understand the requirements of the region and to develop programmes. 

Right now, a few Bahraini students are studying in the University of Derby, according Binns.

The British university is known for its multicultural aspects and the city itself hosts temples and mosques and most of the Arabs, even though apprehensive in their first visits, becomes very fond of the place and many of them consider it as their second home, underscoring the true pluralistic spirit of Derby, he added.

The University of Derby has been recently ranked in the top 50 in The Guardian University Guide 2017, after climbing 25 places from the previous list.

It also received top 10 rankings for Fashion and Textiles, Hospitality, Event Management and Tourism, Journalism, and Film Production and Photography in the ranking. Faculty of law, education and sports science have been ranked in the top 20.

The representatives, who will be camped at Mövenpick Hotel till Wednesday, said that corporate executives could choose whether their courses are to be delivered in Bahrain or in the UK. They welcomed all concerned, including Ministry of Education, industry bodies, universities and corporates for discussions on possible collaborations.

The university also has six academic research centres that cover disciplines such as education, psychology, religion and technology.

“As an institute, our USP is that we are very student focused. We are ranked in the top ten in the teaching quality in UK,” said Birchett. “Employability among our graduates is very high. Last year, 96.4 per cent of our student population either got a job or continued their further studies. We have measures in place that support students including deep research capabilities to nurture them the right way.” “We are looking to discuss with employers regarding employee training courses. Leadership and management based programmes, corporate strategy, CSR might have good demand in the Kingdom as well as the wider region,” said Birchett.

He added that the university has strong research capabilities and new £12.5m centre for science, technology, engineering and maths subjects will open by 2017. Also, fashion and textile courses will be getting new specialist facilities soon and a new £10.8m sports centre is coming up fast. 

The university spent £27m last year on improving infrastructure and teaching facilities, as part of £150m investment programme over the past 10 years.

The research output by the university is considered to be of highest standard by many agencies. More than three quarters of its research are considered to be at least ‘internationally significant’ and 5.4pc of them are classified as ‘world-leading’, according to reports.