The phrase, “world has become a smaller place” is true especially in the case of the education sector. With the introduction to online education, the perspective towards learning and pursuing education has completed changed. Now, the student can study irrespective of their location. Moreover, the advancement in online education has helped both the educational institutes as well as the students. In the case of educational institutes, online education has helped them to widen their reach. Resultantly, the online education sector has become one of the core branches for many educational institutes. But everyone is not in favor of online education. There are two schools of thought — traditional education and online education.
Understanding the current needs and requirements of the students, online education is a more preferable mode of education. Over the years, many educational institutes have shifted towards providing online education whereas some of them are still providing the amalgamation of both. SOAS is one such institute, founded in 1916, as the school of Oriental Studies. And by the year 1938, the school received the title SOAS and was also established itself as a center for African Studies.
Shaping the Current Thinking
In 1941, the school moved to London and since then it is one of the leading Higher Education institutions in Europe, specializing in Asia, Africa, and the Near and Middle East. It is a remarkable institution with a vast repository of knowledge and expertise in the specialist regions. It is uniquely placed to inform and shape current thinking about the economic, political, cultural, security, and religious challenges of the world.
SOAS has an expanded library which is designed by the architect Sir Denys Lasdun and was opened in 1973. This national resource houses more than 1.5 million items. The programs are taught by respected academics engaged in fieldwork and research which influences government policy and the lives of individuals across the globe. SOAS scholars grapple with the pressing issues confronting two-thirds of humankind today: democracy, development, economy, finance, public and corporate policy, human rights, migration, identity, legal systems, poverty, religion, and social change.
Offering Flexible Programs
SOAS continues to maintain its position as the major national center for the study of programmes concerned with Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. New teaching posts have been established, student numbers have increased and the School’s status as a leading research institution has been enhanced. The School is structured academically into five schools, ten departments, and five centers. SOAS students benefit from the wide range of professional and academic links that SOAS has formed with governments, businesses, NGOs, and other organizations, creating a global network of research and enterprise. Every year it delivers programs to over 2500 students living and working around the world, in over 160 countries.
With a modular design, SOAS online and distance learning degrees offer the flexibility to fit postgraduate level studies around professional and personal commitments.
Development, Environment, and Policy
Students undertake research and postgraduate teaching in the fields of agricultural economics, rural development, environmental economics and management, poverty reduction, sustainability, climate change, and development.
- MSc/PGDip/PGCert Climate Change and Development
- MSc/PGDip/PGCert Sustainable Development
Development Studies
This program creates an intellectually engaged and challenging space across the many branches of international development and humanitarianism that make up Development Studies (including political economy, globalization, migration and displacement, conflict, humanitarian action, labor, political ecology, and aid and institutions to name a few).
- MSc Humanitarian Action
- MSc International Development
Financial and Management Studies
he programs are designed to give students a strong academic foundation that will underpin their professional skills. Employers value programs that are specialized and targeted on the issues that matter to their business.
- Individual Professional Awards
- MSc Finance and Financial Law
- MSc Finance (Major: Banking)
- MSc Finance (Major: Economic Policy)
- MSc Finance (Major: Financial Sector Management)
- MSc Finance (Major: Quantitative Finance)
- MSc International Business Administration
- MSc Public Financial Management
- MSc Public Policy and Management
- PG Diplomas and PG Certificates also available
International Studies and Diplomacy
The program aims to deliver cross-disciplinary teaching and learning that combines an understanding of key concepts, theories, and debates with effective practical skills training.
- MA Global Diplomacy
- MA Global Diplomacy: MENA
- MA Global Diplomacy: South Asia
- MA Muslim Minorities in a Global Context
- MA Global Security and Strategy
- MSc Global Corporations and Policy
- MSc Global Energy and Climate Policy
- MSc Global Public Policy
MOOCs
The free Mass Open Online Courses attract hundreds of thousands of students and give a taste of full Master’s experience. These are general level courses that require only one to two hours of commitment each week.
- Global Diplomacy – Diplomacy in the Modern World
- Global Diplomacy – The United Nations in the World
- Global Energy and Climate Policy
- Risk Management in the Global Economy
- Understanding Research Methods
- Understanding Public Financial Management: How Is Your Money Spent?
An Educator Being A New Evolution
Dr. Dan Plesch, Director, Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS read history at Nottingham and obtained professional qualifications in social work and public administration from Bristol in 1979 and 1980, he then worked for non-governmental organizations focused on the abolition of nuclear weapons. In 1986, he founded the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and directed it from Washington DC until 2001, then he became the Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London. His academic posts since 1988 include Honorary Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University, Research Associate at Birkbeck College, University of London and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Keele University.
Outside academia, he has acted as consultant and advisor to the UK and US governments, the BBC, CNN, Sky News, Kroll Security International, Oxfam, the Foreign Policy Centre, and Greenpeace. He was the independent advisor to the UK government’s department of constitutional affairs on the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. Dan says, “Online education is a natural evolution of learning. Today, we live online for much of our lives and so too is education.”
Achieving Notable Promotions And Advancement
Both traditional education and online education are excellent at SOAS. Students who want the campus experience of London in its educational and cultural heartland can opt for traditional education. Those students who want to combine study with where they live and work and manage domestic commitment can choose the latest effective online teaching and learning. Online education has helped many students with outstanding progression at work due to Online degrees, achieving notable promotions, new job roles and enhanced knowledge across a range of current topics and theories. Along with helping students academically, it is important to inculcate some social as well as cultural responsibilities in them. At SOAS, this social and cultural awareness are an instinctive part of learning and life which is underpinned by its core values.
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