By Bill Hicks, BBC
South Africa is producing online courses to sell back to the US and Europe. Founders, brothers Rob and Sam Paddock, are part of a new breed of academic entrepreneur. The company grew out of a project to help their father, a property lawyer who lectured at the University of Cape Town, to extend his teaching to professionals who had no chance of attending lectures. They were aware of a massive hunger among African professionals for expert, high-quality “up-skilling” – especially in fast-changing fields of IT, commerce, law and accounting. “We talked to UCT [University of Cape Town]. It was hard work convincing them but eventually they agreed to run a trial,” said Rob Paddock. The pilot short courses they developed were marketed under the UCT banner, and provided successful students with a certificate from one of Africa’s top higher education institution. The results for those first students were “so good that the UCT people said, let’s do more”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36796998
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