The one thing to settle before you read any further
Studying online does not change how the Diploma is examined. The end-of-year examinations, including the Arabic Level 1 oral and the tasmīʿ of what you have memorised, are sat in person in Leicester. If you cannot be in Leicester for them you can still study the year, but you cannot be awarded the Foundation Diploma.
That is the whole of the catch, and it is deliberate. The Arabic Level 1 paper has an oral part, and tasmīʿ means reciting from memory to the teacher and being corrected by him. Those are heard in a room. Awarding the same Diploma to someone who was never examined the same way would make the award mean less for everybody who holds it, so it is not done.
In practice it is one journey to Leicester in July, and you are told the dates in writing during the first term, well before the £50 examination fee falls due. If you decide at that point that you cannot travel, say so: you may withdraw and the fees for the rest of the year are refunded. If you would rather sit the year without the award, you may do that too, and you receive a transcript of your study and marks instead.
What “online” means here, and what it does not
It means the same hour, at the same time, as the students in the room. The class meets Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 8.00–9.00pm UK time. A camera and a link are open from Leicester and you are in the class, not watching a copy of it. You can ask a question and be answered. You recite and are corrected. When the register is called your name is on it.
It does not mean a library of videos to work through at your own pace. Every session is recorded, and the recordings go on your student portal so you can go back over a text, a point of grammar or a ruling you did not catch. But attendance is counted from the live session, not from watching the recording afterwards, and the programme expects ninety per cent of it. If your week cannot hold three fixed evenings, this is the wrong course, and it is better to know that now than in November.
It also does not mean you are filmed. The recording is made by a fixed camera pointed at the teacher, so it holds his image and voice and nobody else's. The video call itself is never recorded.
What you actually study
One academic year, one hundred contact hours, four strands taught from short and sound texts rather than summaries of them: ʿaqīdah, fiqh, ḥadīth and tafsīr. Arabic runs through all of it and is taught from the first week, from the Madinah books, at the Madinah pace. Explanation is in English; the texts, the evidences and increasingly the reading are in Arabic.
You need to be able to read the Qur'an fluently in Arabic script. You do not need to know any grammar before you start, and most people do not.
The year runs from 21 September 2026 to 16 July 2027, with a written task most weeks, an essay each term, and examinations at the end.
What your week looks like from home
Three evenings. You sign in to the student portal, open Live Class, and the join button is there. It takes you into the same room as everybody else, and you record your own attendance on the same page, as every student does, between 7.45pm and 10pm on the evening; the office corrects the register if you forget. Keeping your camera on is the normal way to study here; you may study with it off where turning it on would be wrong for you, and then your presence is established by voice instead, which counts exactly the same.
The rest of the week. Expect three quarters of an hour to an hour a day of your own work: memorisation, the week's written task, and reading ahead. That is the part that decides whether people finish, online or in the room.
Your portal. This week's session and its link, every lesson recorded afterwards, your own attendance record, your marks and written work, your fees, the reading list, and a message thread that goes straight to the teacher rather than into a general inbox. Being the student who is not physically there is the reason that thread exists.
How this differs from a recorded course, and how to tell
The two shapes are not better and worse, they are different things, and the words used to sell them are nearly identical. A recorded course is usually cheaper, always available, and asks nothing of you at a particular hour. It suits somebody with an unpredictable week and the self-discipline to sit down alone. Its weakness is that nobody knows if you stopped.
A live course costs more to run, because a teacher is present, and it asks you to be somewhere at eight o'clock. Its strength is that you are corrected while the mistake is fresh, that you hear other people's questions, and that when you go quiet somebody notices and asks why.
Three questions will tell you which one you are being offered, whoever is offering it. Is there a fixed time each week when the teacher is actually present? Is attendance recorded, and does anybody follow it up? And is there an examination that somebody marks, or a certificate that arrives simply because you reached the end?
What it costs and what the certificate is
£40 a month for 11 months, which is £440 of tuition, plus a £50 end-of-year examination fee: £490 for the year including the examination, plus the class books at cost. There is no enrolment fee. The fee is the same whether you study online or in person.
The Foundation Diploma is the College's own award. The College is independent: the award is not a regulated qualification, is not accredited, and carries no university credit.
That last paragraph is on this page for the same reason it is on every other one. Islamic study in the United Kingdom sits almost entirely outside the regulated qualifications system, so most certificates in this field are awarded by the institution that taught you. Ask any provider the same question and expect a straight answer.
Who this suits, and who it does not
It suits you if you are in the United Kingdom, outside easy reach of Leicester, and you want to be taught rather than to watch teaching. If you have started three online courses and finished none of them, the fixed hour and the register are the point, not the inconvenience.
It does not suit you if your evenings are genuinely unpredictable, if you want to move at your own pace, or if you cannot make one journey to Leicester in July. None of those is a failing. They just mean a different course, and there are good ones.
If you are near enough to come in person, come in person. The room is better, and the year is the same year. The programme page has all of it set out, and the plain guide walks through the week, the books and the venue.
Questions people ask
- Can I do the whole diploma online?
- You can study the whole year online. You cannot be awarded the Diploma without sitting the examinations, and those are sat in person in Leicester. Studying online does not change how the Diploma is examined. The end-of-year examinations, including the Arabic Level 1 oral and the tasmīʿ of what you have memorised, are sat in person in Leicester. If you cannot be in Leicester for them you can still study the year, but you cannot be awarded the Foundation Diploma.
- Is this live, or recorded videos?
- Live. The class meets Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 8.00–9.00pm UK time, and you are in the session with the teacher and the students in the room. Recordings are published afterwards so you can go back over what was taught, but attendance is counted from the live session and the programme expects ninety per cent of it.
- Do I have to keep my camera on?
- Keeping it on is the normal way to study here, because the teacher needs to know who is present and whether you are following. You may study with your camera off where turning it on would be wrong for you, because of modesty, a disability or health condition, or where you have to study from. You tell the teacher once and it stands for the year, and your presence is then established by voice instead, which is marked exactly the same.
- Am I recorded?
- No. The camera is pointed at the teacher and the recording holds his image and voice and nobody else's. The video call is never recorded. The one thing to know is that the camera picks up room sound, so a question asked loudly enough to carry may be audible; tell the teacher if that concerns you and that part is not published.
- I live outside the UK. Can I join?
- The class is taught at UK time and the examinations are sat in Leicester, so the programme is built for people living in the United Kingdom. If you are abroad and can be in Leicester in July, speak to us before you apply rather than after.
- What if I miss a session?
- Tell the teacher beforehand where you can. The recording is there to help you catch up, but a missed session is still recorded as an absence, the same as it would be for somebody in the room, and the week's memorisation and written task still stand. Absences are followed up rather than ignored, and parents of students under eighteen are told of every one.
- Does studying online cost less?
- No. It is £40 a month for 11 months plus the £50 examination fee, £490 for the year including the examination, whichever way you study. It is the same teaching, the same hour and the same award.
- Is the certificate recognised?
- The Foundation Diploma is the College's own award. The College is independent: the award is not a regulated qualification, is not accredited, and carries no university credit. Islamic study in the United Kingdom sits almost entirely outside the regulated qualifications system, so this is true of most certificates in this field, and it is a fair question to put to anybody who offers you one.