On 29 July 2021, the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE) Partnership Meeting 2021 (Africa and West Asia) was successfully held. The meeting was organized by the International Center for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI) and co-organized by the IIOE Rotating Presidency for 2021 - University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore, Pakistan.

Group photo of the offline meeting

Prof. Syed Mansoor Sarwar, President of University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore, Pakistan and IIOE Rotating President for 2021, delivered opening remarks

The meeting summarized IIOE's achievements in promoting online and blended higher education with partner HEIs since its foundation, and reported IIOE's strategic plan for the year of 2021-2022.

Prof. LIM Cher Ping and experts from four countries discussed IIOE Quality Assurance 2.0

Experts of higher education quality assurance from South Africa, Indonesia, Australia and Nigeria discussed howIIOE Quality Assurance 2.0can be used to support partner HEIs to improve the quality of online and blended higher education. They said thatIIOE Quality Assurance 2.0is comprehensive, providing practical tools and helpful guidance for HEIs to carry out quality online and blended higher education. The experts suggested thatIIOE Quality Assurance 2.0should be continuously updated based on the experience and recommendations of partner HEIs, and that universities should be encouraged to improve the quality of online and blended higher education through professional capacity development and experience sharing.

Leaders of IIOE partner HEIs delivered speeches

The president of Ain Shams University stated that Ain Shams University will jointly establish the IIOE Egypt National Centre with UNESCO-ICHEI to facilitate teacher ICT capacity building, to strengthen institutional online and blended teaching capabilities and to realize the digital transformation of higher education in Egypt at the national level. The Vice Chancellor of Makerere University stated that his university, as a top university in East Africa and a founding member of the IIOE, will play a leading role to share its experience and enable IIOE to benefit universities across Uganda. The Vice President of Cadi Ayyad University and the Director General of Virtual University of Côte d'Ivoire expressed their earnest expectations for the co-construction of online courses with IIOE and the promotion of the digital transformation of higher education through university-industry cooperation.

IIOE's partner enterprises Seewo and Huawei respectively presented how they apply technologies and resources to support IIOE's partner HEIs in enhancing online and blended higher education. Mr. Darren Lin, representative from Seewo, introduced the software and hardware products that Seewo had provided in the field of high education as well as its teacher ICT competency training system. He said that Seewo is willing to share digital education tools and services with developing countries to promote the digital transformation of HEIs in West Asia and Africa. Mr. Amr Mohamed Mahrouse Zayed and Mr. GUAN Mingyu, representatives from Huawei, introduced the Huawei ICT academies and talent ecosystem in Egypt and worldwide. They both indicated that Huawei is willing to join forces with IIOE to help developing countries cultivateinnovative ICT talents that meet the needs of the digital era.

Representatives of IIOE partner enterprises delivered speeches

Professor LI Ming, director of UNESCO-ICHEI, said in his concluding remarks that UNESCO-ICHEI will continue to co-construct and share IIOE with global partners to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 "Quality Education". He proposed three directions for the future development of IIOE:

Firstly, UNESCO-ICHEI will integrate the inputs of international experts and partner HEIs to improve IIOE Quality Assurance 2.0. UNESCO-ICHEI will offically launch theIIOE Quality Assurance 2.0with UNESCO, IIOE's global partner HEIs and 10 project countries of the UNESCO-Shenzhen Funds-in-Trust (SFIT) Africa Project at the "UNESCO-SFIT Africa Project" outcome meeting towards the end of November 2021, providing a reference for the quality assurance of global online and blended higher education.

Secondly, UNESCO-ICHEI will use the technology and resources of enterprises to support online and blended education in universities around the world, especially in developing countries. UNESCO-ICHEI will cooperate with Huawei to explore how to equip hardware and software with HarmonyOS which was recently released by Huawei, in order to support more efficient sharing of educational resources among IIOE partner HEIs and improving education quality.

Thirdly, online and blended learning has become a new normal in higher education. Accordingly, IIOE will continue to develop ICT online courses and training programs in Chinese, English, French, Arabic, Russian and Spanish based on global successful cases and experience, and serve as a platform to provide ICT-themed online courses and training programmes in all six official languages of the United Nations. In addition, UNESCO-ICHEI is working with partner HEIs in Egypt, Pakistan and other countries to establish IIOE National Centers with the endorsement of national ministries in charge of higher education. UNESCO-ICHEI will provide hardware and software support for IIOE National Centers, and serve more universities and teachers in its project countries.

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