Canada at the American College of Dubai

More than 30 universities and colleges from Canada visited the American College of Dubai recently.

Organised by the Canadian embassy in Abu Dhabi, the exhibition offered English Foundation programmes apart from bachelor and PhD degrees for students who wish to transfer.

"Such educational fairs help develop relationships between schools from Canada and institutions here," said Simone Jucker, Trade Commissioner of Education and Training, Canadian Embassy.

What students said:
"I think exhibitions are really awesome; they give you an insight on how to plan your future, which university you can transfer to. An informative platform."
- Ruchi Dholakia
Business

"As you can't always get the right kind of information through the internet ... basically one cannot interact through the net. This is when education fairs like these are most helpful."
- Patrick Mboma
Business

"It offers a lot of information to transfer students. We get to interact personally with the faculty of the Canadian universities and this makes it really simple for us to get information."
- Merlyn D'souza
Mass communication

"Exhibitions can be useful to potential applicants. Doubts can be cleared and relevant information can be gathered. I've already got five application forms but I am keeping my options open."
- Amina Sulthana Khalique
IT

"Education fairs prove to be avery good learning experience."
- Sheryl Coutinho
Business

IDP Gulf Road Show
Date: November 2 - 4
Participants: 24
Number of visitors: More than 250

The Australian higher education exhibition took place at the Dubai Knowledge Village. It brought together 24 top Australian institutions.

Students got a chance to speak to faculty members face to face, and sit for interviews.

Last year, the IDP Road Show attracted around 2,000 visitors. The fair usually runs for two weeks, touring the GCC countries of the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

How did the exhibition go?
At the entrance to the exhibition, students had to sign up supplying the details about the courses they were looking for.

Students then waited their turn to receive one-on-one pre-counselling from experts. This was to gauge student interests and help the counsellor in narrowing down the study options for the students. The students were then directed to suitable universities.

Students also got a chance to meet former students who had studied in Australia, who shared their experiences about student life there.
- R.A.H.

Feedback from some of the universities that took part
"IDP is a well-respected exhibition; it is an opportunity to introduce our university to the students here in Dubai. Participating in this event gives Charles Sturt University importance and publicity."
- Chris Wounes
Sales manager, Charles Stuart University

"Basically, we want to provide students with information about the subjects we offer. The exhibition is a good exercise for the recognition of Australian education."
- Rachel Perkin
Regional manager marketing, University of Tasmania

What students said:

"There wasn't enough publicity and advertisiments about the event. And we didn't find many universities that offer masters programmes for dentistry."
- Khalid Al Ali
Dental surgery, Ajman University of Science and Technology Network (AUSTN)

"The choice of universities for the masters degree in dentistry was limited to a few colleges, and that was not very satisfactory."
- Mahdi Ebrahimi
Dental surgery, AUSTN

"As far as the education in Australia is concerned, the exhibition was pretty much satisfactory. It was very useful, informative and it covered all our concerns."
- Sameer Masoud
A-level, Saint Mary's School, Dubai

"Having attended last year's exhibition, I think more universities have joined this time. This shows that the exhibition is a success and personally it answered all my questions and it was comprehensive."
- Hashir Ezhar
A-level, Saint Mary's School, Dubai

Parents' feedback

"The exhibition was very useful and informative. It was satisfactory and it helped us make our decision."
- Shaikh Noor Mohammad
Working as a sales manager

"It provided us with lots of options and we found what we were looking for. As a parent, I feel safe sending my son to study abroad, because I got a clear idea about the situation there."
- Dr Urmila Jariwala
Dentist, Ras Al Khaimah