South Asian Partners of IIOE Gather at One Platform

South Asian Partners of IIOE Gather at One Platform

In December 2019, UNESCO-ICHEI, together with its partner HEIs and Enterprises in Africa and Asia-Pacific regions, initiated the international Institute of Online Education (IIOE), an online platform to strengthen university teachers’ digital competency in developing countries and to improve access to quality higher education resources.

Since then, dynamic quality resources of courses, tools, and training have been created and shared through collaboration within the IIOE network, benefiting thousands of participants across the globe. 

South Asian partners of IIOE from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and China joined the contemporary challenges and future needs in terms of developing a framework for university teachers’ digital competency. The agenda of the South Asian consultation was to discuss the existing structure for the professional development of teachers in various universities of each participating country. Besides that, future need in terms of key digital competency and skill set for university teachers and trend in adopting online/blended learning after the pandemic was discussed. The platform not only served as an ice-breaking and networking session but also served as a feedback form for IIOE where participants shared their experiences and proposed some valuable suggestions so as to overcome existing challenges and shortcomings. In line with the vision of IIOE, potential partners and their needs were listed. 

Setting the scene & aligning the objectives of the consultation, case studies of the IIOE founding partners, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were tasked. While presenting the case study of UET Lahore Pakistan, Dr. Waqar Mahmood explained the current state of Higher Education in Pakistan, initiatives for teacher professional development by Higher Education Commission Pakistan, challenges for teachers, need for digital competency in Pakistan. He also shared the contributions of IIOE National Centre Pakistan to promote adaptive learning whereas representing Sri Lanka, Ms. Thushani Weerasinghe from the University of Colombo shared experience of conducting training programs for teachers on video-based content development for E-learning. She said, more activities need to be done by working together, sharing tasks, and learning from each other to promote adaptive learning.

New Partners of IIOE South Asia comprising Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan were also welcomed at the consultation. Mr. Ganga Gautam from Tribhuvan University represented Nepal, Mr. Mostafa Azad Kamal from Bangladesh Open University represented Bangladesh, and Ms. Aisha Mehmood from the University of Education, Lahore represented Pakistan. Toward the end of the session, the session chair Mr. Cheng Pring Lim had an interaction with participating IIOE members in the Q & A session. At the conclusion of the session, the summary of the consultation was presented by Dr. Waqar Mahmood from UET Lahore.