Enabling access to education through bridging courses

Education has been a very hot product that is highly sought out by people who feel it will offer them a gateway to a bright future. The rate at which universities are cropping up is a testimony of how demand and supply of knowledge is a serious investment worth every single coin at one’s disposal. It is the urgent need of this precious commodity that those who were deemed to have failed to gain direct entry to university have found an escape route so to say and speed up their academic growth. Universities have come up with bridging courses in various subjects e.g. Mathematics, Physics, Biology and not forgetting Languages like French, English, Swahili, Japanese, and Chinese. One major objective of this method is to build a strong foundation for studying scientific courses like medicine, Engineering and many others that promise lucrative jobs once completed.Even though many people will be ready to dispute its relevance to education citing it as a way of extorting money from students, bridging courses offer a lifeline to students who might have given up on their dream careers due to failure to meet the threshold set up for such courses. They help them learn at their own pace and correct areas that they had not done well previously and due to their goal of advancing studies, they really do their best to understand these concepts and prepare themselves well for the battle ahead.Research shows that such students usually have an intrinsic motivation and would like to prove to their parents and the world that they are equally good. This gives them the urge to go an extra mile to be the best. It has also been noted that many professors started their academic journey from this point. Most of them started with certificates, then diplomas, bachelors’ degree, masters and finally obtained their PhDs’. They benefited from such programs and so long as one is determined and ready to take an academic risk, then nothing is impossible because nowadays the sky is not the limit.Another element of bridging courses can be seen through postgraduate diplomas where after obtaining a bachelors degree in one field and a person would be interested in shifting to another area, h/she will pursue such a course to build the basics of enabling him/her have the pillars of withstanding the content taught in the relevant masters degree program. This has enabled people achieve their goals and specialise in an area of their interest and thus high productivity at the work place. Many technical experts especially engineers have also gone through such courses and have overtime updated their skills to be the professionals they are today. Tutors need to clearly show to students how such courses offer a link to their career progression and thus inspiring them to believe that it is possible to scale the heights of education.Lastly I would like to encourage students that it is very possible to attain their goals however impossible they may look like. What they need to do is to carry a good research to assess the advantages of taking this route.The writer is a teacher at Riviera High School