Building Future-Ready Higher Ed through Equitable & Quality Online and Blended Teaching and Learning
Channel: UNESCO-ICHEI Shenzhen China
Date: 2021-12-06

Global MOOC and Online Education Conference - Sub-forum 1: Building Future-Ready Higher Education through Equitable and Quality Online and Blended Teaching and Learning, 6 December 2021, Shenzhen, China
Background
The global higher education landscape is shifting rapidly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital transformation of higher education and the workplace, international mobility of students and scholars, climate change, among other factors. Higher education institutions (HEIs), especially in the global south, face many challenges in implementing inclusive and quality online and blended teaching and learning (OBTL), ensuring the relevance of existing curriculum and assessment, and building institutional capacity to manage these challenges of equity, quality, and efficiency. Given the external and internal challenges, capacity building will be vital to building future-ready higher education institutions and systems that are resilient to the rapid development of digital technologies and ready to take up the opportunities to leverage them for equitable and quality higher education.
The newly released UNESCO report, Reimagining Our Futures Together: A new social contract for education, emphasises the foundational principles of assuring the right to quality education throughout life and strengthening education as a public endeavour and a common good as we move to 2050 and beyond to continue empowering future generations to reimagine their futures and their worlds. More specifically, the report highlights the crucial role of HEIs in the Futures of Education, from supporting research and the advancement of science to becoming contributing and collaborative partners to other stakeholders around the globe. Concurrently, in releasing STEERING Tertiary Education: Toward Resilient Systems that Deliver for All, the World Bank Group also highlights the importance of tertiary education in building back better in a new era of green and equitable economic growth. In the proposed steering framework, one dimension explicitly addresses the importance of leveraging technology to improve teaching and research capacity while countering the impact of expanding digital divides. Another dimension on equity calls for actions to ensure equity and inclusion as driving methods for an effective and relevant tertiary education system.
As global stakeholders continue working towards equitable and quality global learning for all, the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI) and the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) are hosting the sub-forum 1 of the 2021 Global MOOC and Online Education Conference, inviting global higher education leaders to share experiences and perspectives. The theme of the sub-forum will be Building Future-Ready Higher Education through Equitable and Quality Online and Blended Teaching and Learning. Representatives from the ministries of education, higher education institutions, international non-governmental organizations, and private enterprises are invited to engage in a series of keynote presentations, policy roundtable discussions, and case studies to shed light on each stakeholder's roles in building future-ready higher education under the Conference theme Together for a Shared Future-Leading Higher Education Innovation in the New Digital Era.
Objectives
By examining the global education discourse, international/national policies, and good practices of higher education institutions around the world, this forum will provide a platform for global higher education stakeholders to chart the way forward for harnessing the power of digital technology and implementing equitable and quality OBTL to build future-ready higher education.

Specific goals include:
-Explore the roles, policies, effectiveness, development trends, opportunities and challenges of implementing OBTL in improving equity and quality of higher education.
-Discuss successful practices and lessons learned from the implementation of OBTL.
-Discuss the roles and functions of related stakeholders.
-Respond to the latest global higher education discourse initiated by international non-governmental organisations, such as the Futures of Education initiative by UNESCO and the STEERing -Framework proposed by  the World Bank, discuss ways to operationalise related calls and recommendations.
-Document the discussions and responses of speakers and develop a consultation brief to be submitted to the UNESCO World Higher Education Conference.

Reimagining Our Futures Together: A new social contract for education: https://en.unesco.org/futuresofeducation/news/launch
Steering Tertiary Education: Toward Resilient Systems that Deliver for all: https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2021/09/27/steering-tertiary-education-toward-resilient-systems-that-deliver-for-all#3