Intl. institute of online education set up

Staffers with the ICHEI attend the online inauguration of International Institute of Online Education at SUSTech on Thursday. Courtesy of the ICHEI

The International Institute of Online Education (IIOE), a flagship project of the International Center for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI), was officially launched Thursday.

Through the online learning platform, 11 higher education partner institutions in Africa and Asia-Pacific and four universities in China can now share 100 discipline-related courses and professional development courses in English, French and Chinese.

With a 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) seed fund from Tencent Charity Foundation as support, the institute will offer quality online courses for ICHEI higher education partner institutes in the African and Asian-Pacific regions, support teachers to conduct quality teaching with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and build a blended online eco-learning system to enable higher education reform at partner universities.

ICHEI has developed a network of 11 partner universities in African and Asian countries that include Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria, Ain Sham University in Egypt, Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia, University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, University of Djibouti and University of Makerere in Uganda.

“The successful launch of IIOE is only the first step. The road ahead will be long and our climb will be steep. We will pool more quality online courses to set up a user-friendly learning platform and organize trainings and evaluations on teachers’ ICT capability, bringing more tangible benefits to teachers and learners in partner universities,” Li Ming, secretary-general of IIOE, said at an interview.

“ICT is becoming more and more important in providing quality education, especially in the current situation that schools in many countries find themselves in: confronted with unprecedented challenges in education and teaching,” said Li.

The latest statistics from UNESCO show that, 138 countries had suspended classes by March 26, and a total of 1.37 billion students and 2 million teachers have been affected.

After IIOE is in operation, Li said, training sessions and lectures on public health and pandemic prevention and control will be introduced between April and June to help partner universities to combat COVID-19. This will be in addition to the courses to enhance teachers’ ICT capacities to facilitate online teaching and learning.

ICHEI was approved for establishment in November 2015, by the 38th General Conference of UNESCO. It is the 10th Education Sector UNESCO Category 2 center in the world and also the first Category 2 center for higher education in China.