Page 118 - EW November 2025.pdf Final

Eyewitness Report

faculty and start-ups being incu-
bated on campus, are the formula
for boosting students’ employability.
According to Dr. Harith, MEC has
signed academy-industry partner-
ships with 52 Omani and seven
regional (Arab world) companies to
support campus-based start-ups and
incubated enterprises.
“We work closely with the
Academic Writing and Student Suc-
cess Centre to help students write
their CVs and prepare them for job
interviews, stage and participate in
career fairs, and prepare students
for workplaces in our World of Work
Services and Entrepreneurship and
Alumni Engagement centres. The
outcome is that the majority of MEC
graduates are employed in Oman MEC business management students: strong industry partnerships. Inset: Al Jahwari
and Arab countries and the rest are
either in higher education or self- several academic and non-academic ment and cost-effective recruitment
employment,” says Harith. activities such as hostels, coffee shop, practices is that MEC is not only a
Although over the past 23 years labs and leasing unutilized college well recognised and favoured HEI in
MEC has established an excellent property, we have been successful in Oman, it is receiving good notices in
reputation in Oman, UAE and GCC diversifying our revenue streams. As the UAE and beyond — as testified
(Middle East) countries for its robust a result, MEC hasn’t been in the red by it being called in to transform the
academic programmes and extraor- in any year since it was promoted flagging all-women Jumeira Univer-
dinary preparation of students for almost a quarter century ago and has sity, Dubai (see box p. 120)
workplaces and entrepreneurship, self-financed its growth and devel- “There’s no doubt in my mind
this steady academic and reputation- opment,” says John, a graduate of that measured by the yardsticks
al growth has been enabled by tight St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore and of embedding skills into degree
financial management and resource Loughborough University, UK. programmes, student-centricity,
optimization. A large share of the The upshot of balanced, calibrated people management, integration
credit for this is widely accorded to institution building supplemented with industry and agile mindset of
Ashwin John, CEO, Deputy Dean with prudent financial manage- leadership, MEC has attained best
and Registrar of the college who Ashwin John: self-financed growth global standards. I believe that it is
signed up with MEC ab initio when ready to export its model to the GCC
it was started as an IT education col- and MENA (Middle East and North
lege 23 years ago Africa) countries,” says Chris Ray-
“The steady and orderly growth bould, Promoter-Managing Director
of MEC which was started in one of London-based Centric Global
building with 200 students 23 years Consultancy LLP which provides top
ago into a highly respected HEI personnel recruitment, deployment
providing quality IT, engineering and institutional management ser-
and business management degree vices to corporates and HEIs (includ-
programmes to 4,500 students is ing MEC) worldwide. Raybould is
very satisfying. It is the outcome eminently qualified to make this as-
of developing rigorous academic sessment because he played a major
programmes, quickly adopting best role in infusing Coventry University’s
teaching-learning practices, strong engineering programmes with high
linkages with industry and aca- employability quotient.
demic institutions abroad, including Focus on providing students with
MAHE, India and Coventry Univer- robust academic degree programmes
sity, UK. Moreover, by outsourcing supplemented with intensive indus-

118 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2025