Release date：2021.12.16

[Upcoming Event] Jan 11, 2022: IIOE Annual Partnership Meeting 2021 (Africa and West Asia)

Background
The global higher education landscape is undergoing a dramatic change under the backdrop of technological innovation, labour market evolution and the Covid-19 pandemic. Even though the advance of technology has increased the diversity of the higher education process, access and quality, inequality and digital divide remain, especially for the Global South. Higher education systems in the Global South are experiencing more challenges in terms of educational access, effectiveness, and relevance, which are also most affected during the pandemic due to factors such as availability of technological infrastructure, connectivity, digital skills, and institutional capacity.

UNESCO's newly launched report entitled Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education calls for international higher education stakeholders to open up a conversation on how to strengthen education as a public endeavor and a common good to improve the existence of all living beings.

Aligning to UNESCO's higher education initiatives and in response to the strategies and priorities of higher education in UNESCO-ICHEI's project countries, the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE) has been creating an ecosystem with its global partners for a more inclusive, better quality and more relevant higher education system for its partner higher education institutions (HEIs) in light of the pandemic and post-pandemic era. Together with its partners, IIOE has made significant progress in the year of 2021, from supporting partner HEIs' teaching and learning with IIOE online courses, to co-constructing professional development programmes and online curricula; from building multilingual online education platforms, to joint research on quality assurance and higher education workforce competency framework for online and blended teaching and learning.

Within this context, UNESCO-ICHEI and UNESCO will jointly organise the IIOE Annual Partnership Meeting 2021 (Africa and West Asia) under the theme of Digital Transformation Empowering the Futures of Higher Education in Africa and West Asia.

The meeting aims to bring together the IIOE global partners, including HEIs, research institutions, international organizations, enterprises and governments to re-think the futures of higher education and the renewed role of higher education stakeholders, with a focus on discussing how IIOE could work with its global partners to serve and support its partner HEIs to chart the way forward for future higher education transformations. Issues of common interests to IIOE partners will be discussed, covering leadership in the higher education digital transformation, teacher's personalised and collective professional development, transformative curriculum and pedagogy, higher education technological research and localised application, quality assurance and monitoring and evaluation for online and blended teaching and learning.

Objectives
- Review IIOE developments in 2021, including achievements and challenges;
- Share innovative practices and research of online and blended teaching and learning, and higher education innovation;
- Discuss how to leverage IIOE to serve the higher education digital transformation agenda of IIOE partner HEIs;
- Contribute to the development of strategies or action plans in IIOE partner HEIs that will help make higher education systems more resilient to future disruptions and more prepared for future developments;
- Conduct the 2022 IIOE rotating presidency unit rotation.

Organisers
International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI)
UNESCO Priority Africa and External Relations Sector

University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore (Pakistan)

Time and location
11th January 2022（Tuesday），16:00-18:00 （UTC+8）

Onsite meeting venue: Convention Centre, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
Online meeting: Zoom
Zoom Registration Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_44XH2e0YQPqX5f42vOYW3Q

Youtube Streaming: https://youtu.be/ekXqD2hpcKI

Language
The meeting will be conducted in Arabic, Chinese, English, and French. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided.

Contact
Should you have any queries, please contact Africa and West Asia Programme Office, UNESCO-ICHEI by email to Mr. Yanwen Jiao: jiaoyw@ichei.org or Mr. Dean Chen: chendean@ichei.org.

Concept Note and Agenda

Concept Note - IIOE Annual Partnership Meeting 2021 (Africa and West Asia)