Syrian Virtual University

Syrian educational institution

The Syrian Virtual University (SVU) (الْجَامِعَةِ الْإِفْتِرَاضِيَّةَ السُّورِيَّةُ) is a Syrian educational institution established by the Syrian Ministry of Higher Education. It provides virtual education (using the Internet) to students from around the world. It was established on 2 September 2002 and is the first virtual education institution in the region, and as of 2006, remains the only one. The goals of the SVU include offering education to those who want to learn but cannot afford to do so by going to a "brick and mortar" university. It is headquartered at the Ministry of Higher Education building, Damascus. Students can study online, but they should make exams in one of the centres accredited by the University inside and outside Syria.

SVU provides bachelor programs master programs training courses.

Students can use 3G Internet anywhere in Syria via the mobile phone network or they can register for ADSL service which has become available at 30 USD/month. Taking in mind that the average salary for government employees in Syria is between 150,000 and 300,000 Syrian Pounds (equivilant to 11$ 22$ a month), which makes high speed internet unaccessible to a huge part of the Syrian population. One of the issues which the SVU faced during its launch was the lack of proper broadband Internet infrastructure in Syria. This can be viewed as a strategic problem, as it hinders potential students. Faced with the terrible performance of the teleconferencing software on Dial Up (the only available option in Syria at the time). The university created a number of telecenters in multiple Syrian governorates so that students who lacked broadband Internet (most students) could attend their lessons. With the introduction of ADSL and ISDN in 2004, it was hoped that the severity of the problem would be ameliorated. Unfortunately, the situation has not improved much. Until late 2007, ADSL was not yet available. Subscriptions were fewer than 5000 throughout Syria as the cost for any potential adopter was too high (the actual going rate for an ADSL line was almost $1000, due to unavailability and high demand by internet cafes. ISDN, while difficult to attain in many areas, is more publicly available than ADSL, and thus is the only option for many Syrian SVU students who wish to attend lessons from their homes. Most Syrian SVU students attend classes from local telecenters. In 2011, ADSL in Syria cost much less than previously (4M ADSL Subscription cost approximately 4$ which permits a student to attend classes). Now you can connect to ADSL from almost every home in any area. This greatly benefited the university, demonstrated by the fact that it's one of the main 5 universities in Syria now.