colleges

In today's business economy, nothing can be more important than a skill such as the mastery of social media. When a person can communicate effectively using Facebook or Twitter, he or she can attract thousands of new people to a business's products or services. Businesses now have a growing demand for qualified individuals who have social media expertise. If you want to make yourself stand out in today's competitive job market, then developing skills in being able to use technology will help you land your dream job.

Take Social Media Courses

Online colleges now offer social media courses for individuals. You do not have to enroll in a degree program to take one of these classes. You may find that taking only one or two specialized courses gives you the knowledge that you need to master the use of social media. You can also contact students who have taken particular courses to find out whether they had a positive experience in taking the course. If you are truly concerned about the material that will be covered in a social media course, then you may also want to get in touch with a professor before the start of the semester.

More than 450 colleges in the UK have been banned from teaching foreign students, as part of new visa restrictions introduced by the government. As part of a plan to reduce immigration to the UK, there has been a crack down on bogus colleges set up simply as a way to for fake students to get visas.

For years there have been hundreds of colleges offering internationals an easy way into the UK through fake courses that allowed them to claim student visas. However, earlier this year the government announced that this abuse of the immigration system was to be put under scrutiny.

Licences Revoked

Of the 450 colleges affected so far, almost 400 of them failed to register with the new inspection system and so lost the privilege of recruiting international students. The rest either had their licences revoked or suspended due to a variety of misdemeanours. Common problems were colleges that were unable to show records of student attendance, or that they had checked the students' qualifications. However, one college could not even provide a list of enrolled students or a timetable of classes.

The number of official universities in the UK is set to soar in the next year, after the government announced new plans for more relaxed regulations for institutions to gain the prestigious title. They are proposing that the number of full-time students needed for the institution to qualify will be cut from 4,000 to just 1,000. This could lead to more than a dozen small Higher Education colleges in London and throughout the UK winning full university status, in what would be the biggest expansion of universities for twenty years.

The Benefits of a Name

The proposals are all part of the wider scheme to create a more competitive and diverse Higher Education system in England, and the colleges awarded university status will enjoy a number of benefits. The association of the name alone will allow the colleges a better reputation, as they will be connected, in name at least, with the top universities in the UK. Furthermore, they will also be able to gain from the financial benefits that universities are eligible for.

Prof Peter Lutzeier, principal of Newman University College, Birmingham, has backed the proposals, explaining: