allAfrica.com: Mauritius: University Offers 116 New Programmes (Page 1 of 1)

Admission forms are available online as from 9 am today for courses starting in August at the University of Mauritius (UoM). The whole process of admission will be done online on the new website. The main objective this year is to make it possible for the additional 1,500 students to have access to the university.

UoM will offer 116 new programs in August, of which ten undergraduate courses. A foundation programme in design will be one of them. No A-level will be necessary, provided the student has a few years experience in the field. Such foundation courses will allow enrolment in Bsc courses.

The full time and part time students will have a few modules together in order to "optimize space, human resources", said the vice-chancellor, Indur Fagoonee. This will imply later hour courses for undergraduates who will have courses between 3 pm and 6 pm. "We wanted to go even further and propose courses up to 8 pm but some students wrote to us that they would not be at ease with such a measure," Indur Fagoonee pointed out. Problems of transport and security issues were some of the factors that led the university administration to bring back the modules up to 6 pm only. Nothing will change however for Masters and Postgraduates courses that are already available until 8 pm at the moment.

Interactive admission toolkit on the web

The reorganisation consisting in increasing the number of students in some modules will go on this year. About six modules take about 200 students this year while others take only up to 100 of them. "Such courses have worked pretty so far and there is no reason that we do not extend this system to accommodate more students in the future," the vice-chancellor emphasised.

The admission toolkit, an interactive web page available on the UoM site, is aimed at facilitating the students' choices of programmes. "In a flash, students will be able to see in which programmes they have the best choice of being selected by the university according to their School Certificate (SC) or Higher School Certificate (HSC) results," the delighted vice-chancellor explained. "There is no guarantee for students but this new tool will enable them to gauge themselves," he however made it clear.

All courses available on a full-time basis will also be proposed on a part-time basis. And students will have to specify whether they would agree to do it on a part-time basis if ever they are not accepted for the full-time programme.

The university is organising counseling sessions on 7th, 8th and 10th March on the campus in Réduit. All students interested in having more information on courses, or wanting to meet lecturers and be given advice on potential career paths, are expected to seize this opportunity. As the end of requests for admissions will be for the 19th of March, students will then still have time to enroll after the counseling sessions, or even change their preferences.

Apart from those moving up to their second year this year who will face a 15 % increase in general fees, no other students will undergo any changes this year. New recruits of next year will however be subject to a 20 % rise in their general fees.

The new dissertation fees of Rs 3,000 for undergraduate students will be added to these general fees. But Indur Fagoonee made it clear that this amount could be divided by the number of students working on one dissertation together, if students decided to work in groups. "Nothing is being imposed by the university but we strongly recommend group work because it is a real challenge and could be useful for the professional life," he insisted.

Courses for over-sixties

"People between 45 and 90 years old will be given the opportunity to follow courses specially designed for them," revealed Professor Fagoonee. Although no official diploma will be granted to them, they will have a certificate after following high-level university courses. No initial academic qualifications will be required, as their professional experience in their field will be recognized and valued. Globalisation, leadership, social work, healthy living for over-sixties are merely some of the courses available in the new unit of the UoM. Rubina Juwaheer, associate professor of marketing in the law and management faculty, explains what led the university to start such modules, "The ageing population will be increasing by 2020 and we need to find something for them. Many retired civil servants have been complaining of a lack of opportunities for them". The 40th year of independence is coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the UoM. The opening g of this new unit may well coincide with the festivities that will expand over almost a year

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