London university looking to build strong partnership with Goa

The Kenyan-born Darrell, who traces his roots to Carmona and Nagoa, Verna villages in Salcete, was one of the keynote speakers at the ‘Study in UK’ seminar that recently took place at Hotel Grace Majestic next to Mathany Saldhana building, Margao.

The one-day free seminar was organised by Go Global, a Margao-based Educational consultancy - a front runner in training, coaching and placement of Indian students in various professional Universities in Europe and elsewhere.

“I met quite a few students over the three days during my interactions at Loyola Higher Secondary School Margao, Fr Agnel Ashram Higher Secondary School Verna and at St Infant Jesus Higher Secondary Colva as I was looking forward to meeting students during the seminar and guiding them,” said Darrell, who took over as Group Principal and CEO for HCUC in 2021.

The Tottenham Hotspur football fan is passionate about the role further education plays in transforming the lives of people and the part it plays in creating opportunities for young people in particular and is keen to help the Goans in Goa and the large community back in England.

“I've a good connection to Goan community back in the UK and also here in Goa so I think there'll be plenty of interest and I hope we can take on a few of the learners from Goa to come over and study with us. I am here to see what we can do to help the international students join our campus.”

Talking about the Goans in the UK he said HCUC colleges are quite popular among the community students.

“In London, there they're good strongholds of Goan community, in West London, Hounslow, Wembley and Swindon. We found that our college is quite popular amongst the Goan youngsters and community. It was a pleasure to meet so many Goan families during our higher education graduation ceremony a few months back and it's the first time we've been able to do it since the pandemic.”

Darrell said he and his team were there to clear all the doubts of the Goan students regarding studying in the UK with a special focus on their HCUC campus which offers students to enrol for diplomas, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses.

 “We're getting asked a lot of questions, so we're coming out to provide as much information so people can make decisions as to whether they want to come over to us and come over to London and study there. So, I’m doing all I can to try and support that,” he said.

The Goan-origin educationist, who loves playing and singing, especially the Goan Mandos, said his college is keen to build long-lasting bonds with the student community and educational institutes during the visit to the state.

“We're not here just for this month and then away. We'll try and build a partnership with Goa. Hopefully, we will be able to build up good partnership work after our visit and we'll keep those partnerships strong and ongoing,” said Darrell, who is on his first official visit to Goa but has been a frequent visitor to Goa for family functions.

The Oxford-based Darrell by virtue of being the group CEO of HCUC also presides over West London’s Institute of Technology, one of the three in London and 12 overall in the UK.

Talking about the facilities and government support Darrell said: “We've got some fantastic facilities at the college we've invested very heavily in. The government gave us good monies, the West London Institute of Technology has been a six-million-pound build and probably about a million pounds invested since its build so you're probably talking about a 10-million-pound investment so the students come to fantastic facilities.”

As a top-performing college in London, HCUC has been selected as the only college in London to pioneer the new vocational T-Level qualifications and one of just 12 institutions nationally to be funded to build a new West London Institute of Technology offering higher technical level qualifications so sought after by employers.

Meanwhile, Go Global management was excited to host the seminar and the UK university team in Goa.

“We at Go Global have been assisting students since 2004 and have helped and placed over 3000 plus students around the world in different educational institutes in UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, USA, NZ, Singapore, major European countries, with a visa success rate of 99.9%, besides Russia and Ukraine,” Ivory Joao, Managing Director of Go Global said.