Learners now have the option of using the e-Dirham service or a credit card to pay online for any of e-TQM College's online courses. The payment gateway is a shared secure on-line payment gateway that facilitates all Dubai Government departments to conduct electronic payments for the services that are offered online. The unified online payment gateway achieves substantial cost savings for the department in terms of hardware, software, maintenance and manpower. The Payment gateway gives users the option of making payments by credit card (currently Mastercard and Visa) or e-Dirham card (referred to as Government Client Card). In the near future, paying via direct fund transfer from the customer's bank account to the Dubai government account will be implemented. e-TQM College will be the first online education provider to benefit from ePay, to provide its students with online fee transaction facilities.
'The option of online payment of course fees is an important step towards increasing the learner friendliness of the courses on offer. Our objective is to eliminate any obstacles that the learner might face in the pursuit of Total Quality Management skills,' said Dr. Mansoor Al Awar, Director, e-TQM College. 'Our college is well on its way to establishing itself as the leading provider of Total Quality Management studies in the Arab world. We expect that the availability of a reliable online payment option, like ePay, will not only facilitate the studies of our existing learner group, but will also contribute to increasing the reach of our courses to a wider segment of the community.'
'The decision to extend the services of our e-Payment gateway, ePay, to online payment for e-TQM's courses was largely based on the fact that e-Learning is an important aspect in the development of a community that is increasingly interacting online,' said Salem Al Shair, Director eServices, Dubai eGovernment. 'The availability of online learning channels allows all segments of the community to benefit from professional skills. A dependable and secure system of conducting online fee transactions will be an important factor in the optimization of the potential of e-Learning and will contribute to the Dubai eGovernment's goal of encouraging online education opportunities that meet global standards.'
The easy-to-use payment facility between e-TQM College's web portal and Dubai eGovernment's ePay gateway is already available and will save learners additional time and convenience when organising the payment of the courses they wish to participate in.
The new facility is just one of the many new offerings that e-TQM College have introduced recently. The College launched its own publishing house in November 2003, addressing the need for Arabic language quality management publications in this part of the world. In November, the College also launched an exclusive club, the Virtual Executive Club, to assist executives and managers by utilizing recent developments in tactical and strategic management thinking to improve members' performance in their organizations.
e-TQM College has also launched three Centres of Excellence, in Health, Policing and Education, to encourage and enhance excellence in these specific fields. The College offers a range of TQM-related courses from a foundation diploma to the Masters programme in Total Quality and Performance Management that will be launched in January 2004.
Quelle: AME info, 19.01.2004
