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13ИНФОРМАЦИОННО-АНАЛИТИЧЕСКИЙ МАТЕРИАЛ
UNESCO-ICHEI: STRIVING FOR THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
OF GLOBAL HIGHER EDUCATION
Mingshun Xu, Marat Rakhmatullaev
Abstract. The article provides information about the activities of the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI), its goals and objectives, as well as promising projects and activities related to the digital transformation of higher education institutions (HEIs) and the development of digital competencies of higher education professionals. The support of the UNESCO-ICHEI for digital transformation of higher education in Central Asian countries is of great importance for improving the effectiveness of higher education, training qualified personnel and facilitating integration processes in the sub-region. As a UNESCO Category II Centre and international think tank focusing on higher education, UNESCO-ICHEI fully exerts its four main functions of knowledge production, capacity building, technical support, and information sharing through its various cooperation projects and activities with developing countries in Asia and Africa, in an effort to construct a global cooperative ecosystem consisting of universities, international organizations, enterprises, and education policymakers to accelerate the development of online teaching and the digital transformation of colleges and universities globally, based on the principle of "extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits".
Keywords: digital transformation, capacity building, technical support, cooperative ecosystem, higher education
ЮНЕСКО-ICHEI: СТРЕМЛЕНИЕ К ЦИФРОВОЙ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИИ ГЛОБАЛЬНОГО ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
Mingshun Xu, Марат Рахматуллаев
Аннотация. В статье представлена информация о деятельности Международного центра инноваций в высшем образовании под эгидой ЮНЕСКО (UNESCO-ICHEI), его целях и задачах, а также перспективных проектах и мероприятиях, связанных с цифровой трансформацией высших учебных заведений (вузов) и развитием цифровых компетенций специалистов высшего образования. Поддержка ЮНЕСКО-ICHEI в цифровой трансформации высшего образования в странах Центральной Азии имеет большое значение для повышения эффективности высшего образования, подготовки квалифицированных кадров и содействия интеграционным процессам в субрегионе. Являясь международным аналитическим центром, специализирующимся на высшем образовании, ЮНЕСКО-ICHEI в полной мере выполняет свои четыре основные функции по производству знаний, наращиванию потенциала, технической поддержке и обмену информацией посредством различных проектов сотрудничества и мероприятий с развивающимися странами Азии и Африки в стремлении создать глобальную кооперативную экосистему, состоящая из университетов, международных организаций, предприятий, и лиц, определяющих политику в области образования, ускорить развитие онлайн-обучения и цифровую трансформацию колледжей и университетов по всему
миру, основываясь на принципе "широких консультаций, совместного вклада и общих выгод".
Ключевые слова: цифровая трансформация, наращивание потенциала, техническая поддержка, кооперативная экосистема, высшее образование
Introduction
Digital technologies have contributed to the higher education (HE) system, which is taking on new forms. These forms have increased the flexibility and dynamism of the educational process. HE is becoming more individually oriented and has more effective means for continuing education. Since its inception, UNESCO has been developing programs to support education at all levels, including HE, and promoting innovative approaches related to the use of advanced technologies.
Since higher education is of particular importance in the development of a knowledge-based society, UNESCO in its strategic plans pays special attention to advanced programs and the creation of new structures and organizations that could increase the effectiveness of the development of new information technologies and disseminate experience in various countries and regions of the world.
The International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI) was approved by the 38th General Conference of UNESCO held on 13 November 2015. As a UNESCO Category II Centre focusing on higher education, UNESCO-ICHEI was jointly established by UNESCO and the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government of the People's Republic of China on 8 April 2016.
UNESCO-ICHEI works closely around the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), 'Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all', in every respect. Relying on the advantages of Shenzhen's hi-tech sector and drawing upon China's experi-ence with the massification of its higher education, the organization intends to meet the local demand for digital transformation of higher education institutions in developing countries of Asia and Africa, as a response to the fourth industrial revolution and rapid development of digital economies across the world.
UNESCO-ICHEI fully exerts its four main functions of knowledge production, capacity building, technical support, and information sharing through its various cooperation projects and activities with developing countries in Asia and Africa, in an effort to construct a global cooperative ecosystem consisting of universities, international organizations, enterprises, and education policymakers to accelerate the development of online teaching and the digital transformation of colleges and universities globally, based on the principle of "extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits".
Empowering the higher education workforce with digital competencies
Since June of 2016, UNESCO-ICHEI has been brewing the idea of building an educational network for higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide. Through rounds of consultation with experts from international organisations, the education sector, administration authorities, and years of ideation, the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE) was established in December 2019 and officially launched in April 2020. As a collaborative effort of UNESCO-ICHEI and its global partners, IIOE's work is centred around empowering higher education professionals' digital competencies through various teacher professional development activities such as online courses, certified training programmes and webinars. IIOE has built more than 600 online courses in six official languages of the UN, namely Chinese, English, French, Arabic, Spanish and Russian, in collaboration with global partners. IIOE's services reach over 10,000 teachers in 135 countries and regions.
IIOE plays multiple roles and carries out functions that are beyond an online learning platform. IIOE serves as:
• An online learning platform and open resource repository hosting quality higher education courses that focus on developing digital competencies of the higher education workforce (HEW) from partner HEIs to meet the demands of higher education digital transformation;
• An advisory consortium to guide partner HEIs and teachers to upskill their digital competency, infrastructure, strategic planning and digital gover-nance through the IIOE National Centre Mechanism, public digital learning platform and partners to realise the digital transformation of higher education;
• A catalyst and incentive mechanism to support partner HEIs make use of emerging technologies to enhance quality and personalised talent cultivation;
• A higher education collaborative network consisting of UNESCO-ICHEI, IIOE's National Centres and partner HEIs in developing countries, HEIs in China and developed countries, partners in the private sector, international organisations, and other stakeholders in the higher education sector. This network promotes the joint contribution and shared benefits of professional learning and OER, infrastructure upgrade, strategy-planning consultation for transforming higher education.
Meanwhile, in order to reach a wider audience and generate greater impact, UNESCO-ICHEI has been partnering with long-standing partner HEIs to host IIOE National Centres (IIOE-NCs) in their respective countries as a national hub for engaging and mobilising more HEIs and teachers at the national level. So far, UNESCO-ICHEI has established IIOE-NCs in eight partner HEIs: Ain Shams University in Egypt, University of Nairobi in Kenya, Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria, Indonesia Cyber Education Institute in Indonesia, Mongolian University of Science and Technology in Mongolia, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, in Pakistan, Universiti Putra Malaysia in Malaysia, and
Mulungushi University in Zambia. By the end of November 2022, 49 HEIs have been reached and covered through these established IIOE-NCs.
In response to local needs in terms of digital transformation and digital teaching and learning at partner HEIs, UNESCO-ICHEI and IIOE-NCs jointly launched the IIOE Pilot Project for Empowering Teachers' Digital Teaching and Learning in Malaysia, Mongolia, Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria. The pilot project focused on the enhancement of university teachers' digital competencies, while promoting the advancement of policies and mechanisms related to blended learning in higher education. The training conducted within the framework of this pilot utilized a blended approach incorporating online and offline activities, and was complemented with courses and webinars under the support of the IIOE platform for additional learning resources. Upon full implementation of the pilot, promising practices at various levels and professional development resources will be developed and collected to enrich the transforming need for digital teaching competency building. The pilot has also galvanised research and policy advocacy on blended learning, and has created a positive impact on collaborative efforts to promote capacity building of HEIs and the higher education ecosystem.
Providing infrastructure support for universities
To realize the digital transformation of higher education in developing countries in Asian and African regions, HEIs do require establishing hardware infrastructure that can support online, blended and hybrid teaching in addition to an institutional push for integrating technologies into education, a policy shift towards going digital plus a team of university teachers and support staff with digital competencies, professionalism and career development resources.
Through public-private partnerships (PPP) with leading educational technology enterprises in China, UNESCO-ICHEI has been able to donate and establish smart classrooms at partner HEIs. The Smart Classroom (SCR) is a digital learning environment that integrates emerging ICT domains, such as Big Data, Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), Computer Vision and AI (Artificial Intelligent) to support digital teaching and learning, localised curriculum design, cross-campus resource-sharing, learning analytics, administration and management, among other requirements for realising the digital transformation of HEIs. The Smart Classroom consists of both hardware and software components, such as interactive touch panels, student terminals (laptops, all-in-ones or cloud desktops), servers, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) unit, recording and broadcasting system, wireless visualizer, wireless microphones, and network switches and related accessories. Besides, SCR is also powered by the inbuilt Management System that provides support for learning analytics, which creates SCR facility as a user-friendly, smart, and interactive learning environment. Each Smart Classroom facility can accommodate 50 students for lectures, seminars, training, forums, and workshops, among other functions.
Today, UNESCO-ICHEI, in collaboration with partner HEIs, and supported by the Southern University of Science and Technology
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(https://sustech.edu.cn/), successfully deployed 12 SCRs in 12 countries, which are Pakistan, Egypt, Djibouti, Cambodia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, the Gambia, Nigeria, Uganda, and Indonesia, with generous support coming from top-notch Chinese educational technology enterprises as donors named WEDON (https://www.wdecloud.com/) and CreateView
(https://www.createview.com.cn/). In Central Asia, UNESCO-ICHEI is currently deploying a SCR at Kyrgyz National University in Kyrgyzstan and Tashkent University of Information Technologies in Uzbekistan.
Conducting high-level on-site capacity building seminars
Sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, UNESCO-ICHEI has co-organized a series of high-level on-site capacity building seminars, along with the Center for Higher Education Research at Southern University of Science and Technology (CHER/SUSTech). These seminars focus on the topic of ICT Application in Higher Education, and serve as a platform for the sharing and exchange of Chinese experiences in using ICT to advance higher education with developing countries across the world. Since 2017, a total of five seminars have been planned and executed successfully by UNESCO-ICHEI and CHER. Specifically, these seminars share the following characteristics:
• Diverse participants: a total of 170 participants from nearly 30 countries across the globe have participated in the seminars. The majority of the participants include officials and experts from ministries of education, faculty members, and IT specialists from different HEIs.
• Enriched teaching and practices: these seminars have divided curriculum into three aspects: core courses, general courses, and practice. This enabled participants to improve their understanding of ICT application, as well as gain perspectives on how ICT application can be practiced in higher education.
• Insightful field visits: the seminars have also provided opportunities for participants to pay visits to top Chinese enterprises in respective fields and gain insights into how they interact with HEIs in China. These opportunities also allowed participants to engage with these companies for potential collaboration.
Throughout the time, these seminars have enabled UNESCO-ICHEI to build long-term partnerships with participating entities of different countries. They have also facilitated close cooperation to enhance mutual understanding, and deepen friendship.
UNESCO-ICHEI is committed to offering more seminars and expanding the network of participating countries in the future, as a way to contribute to improving the overall quality of higher education in the world.
UNESCO-Shenzhen Funds-in-Trust (SFIT) Project
In 2015, the Shenzhen Municipal Government donated 2 million US dollars to UNESCO to establish the "UNESCO-Shenzhen Funds-in-Trust Project" (SFIT). UNESCO-ICHEI was entrusted by the Shenzhen Municipal Government
to actively participate, organize, coordinate and oversee the imple-mentation and evaluation of the SFIT projects in two Asian countries, namely Cambodia and Sri Lanka, and ten African Countries, namely Niger, Togo, Mali, Cote dIvoire, Gambia, Namibia, Malawi, Senegal, Zambia and Egypt.
The SFIT project in Asia was conducted during 2016-2019. It piloted a new self-assessment framework on blended learning for quality higher education and explored MOOCs and their role in promoting innovation at universities. It has strengthened the regional network for MOOCs platforms. A policy brief on lessons learned and achievements gained will be published soon. The SFIT project in Africa was concluded at the 3rd World Higher Education Conference in May 2022. It has helped four countries to establish new national quality assurance (QA) agencies from scratch and six countries to strengthen the capacity of existing QA agencies.
In view of the fruitful results and remarkable outcomes of the SFIT project, the second phase of the SFIT is under feasibility study now.
Acting as an international think tank
On the verge of a digital future of higher education, "Transforming Education" as a critical global agenda calls for prompt action on digital transformation, which calls for research and evidence-based practices and policies.
In June 2021, UNESCO-ICHEI launched a quarterly information journal CLOUD, with the aim of building an exchange platform that connects professionals in the realm of global higher education by sharing knowledge, project updates, data and best practices related to the digital transformation of global higher education. This flagship publication of UNESCO-ICHEI is available in all six official languages of the UN.
Later, in order to support UNESCI-ICHEI's global partner HEIs in their journey of digital transformation, UNESCO-ICHEI and Institute of Education of Tsinghua University jointly developed the Research Report on Digital Transformation of Higher Education Teaching and Learning, which was officially launched at UNESCO's 3rd World Higher Education Conference (WHEC2022) in May 2022. This report, along with 3 joint handbooks entitled Handbook of Educational Reform through Blended Learning, Handbook of Teacher Professional Development in Higher Education and Handbook of Teacher Professional Development in Technical and Vocational Education and Training, provides a theoretical framework and practical insights into the digital transformation of higher education.
As an international think tank, UNESCO-ICHEI has been actively partnering with a variety of regional and international think tanks, international organizations and other partners on the development of sub-regional and regional reports to support the design and implementation of UNESCO-ICHEI's tailored projects and activities in project countries across regions. For instance, UNESCO-ICHEI, in collaboration with the Institute for Central Asian Studies of Lanzhou
University in China and the Tashkent University of Information Technologies in Uzbekistan, co-developed an analytical report on the digital transformation of industries and higher education in Central Asia. The purpose of the report is to provide information and analytical material on the state, trends, and challenges of digitalization of industries and HE in the republics of Central Asia, as well as ongoing reforms in these countries on this issue.
The report pays special attention to:
- trends in the digitalization of HE in these countries;
- the use of digital technologies in the HE system, the level of digital competencies of HE staff, the introduction of digital pedagogy in the reform of curricula, etc.;
problems/challenges that affect the digitalization of HE in these countries and the corresponding response measures (plans, activities, etc.) taken by these countries and universities, for instance: institutional policies and planning to stimulate and support innovation in teaching and learning; national and subregional policies on online and blended teaching and learning; important initiatives and plans in the sub-region as part of the digital transformation of HE.
What's more, UNESCO-ICHEI has hosted and staged various influential regional and international conferences both online and offline to establish a platform for communication and cooperation with global partners and experts, and to actively raise the voice of UNESCO-ICHEI and share its experiences and practices with its partners in the global dialogue.
Way forward
One of the priorities of UNESCO-ICHEI's work in 2023 is to promote Micro-certification (MC) as a form of innovative learning within the IIOE network, and explore how MC can be more practically implemented and universally accepted. Currently, UNESCO-ICHEI has launched a dedicated MC project for higher education teachers and leaders, aiming to empower them with future-oriented digital capabilities. Through organizing a group of experts from home and abroad, UNESCO-ICHEI seeks to establish a reference framework for the digital transformation of higher education and build high-quality and diverse resources for the professional development of teachers through certification-based training, thus serving more higher education workforce in developing countries.
Conclusion
As research and experience show, digitalization makes it possible to approach the HE system, its achievements, the content itself, the means, methods and organizational forms of educational work in a new way. We try to evaluate the results achieved on the basis of advanced technologies and new methods. Digitalization of HE has led to a new round of its development. It didn't abolish the traditional form of education, but created the innovative mixed model that allows rationally combining both classical and advanced didactic solutions. To
solve these problems, we need organizations that coordinate and support digital transformation projects on a global scale.
One of these organizations is the UNESCO-ICHEI, which performs four important functions for the development of HE: knowledge formation; capacity building; technical support; information exchange. The UNESCO-ICHEI is actively working with Asian and African countries to develop and implement projects to create the global ecosystem of cooperation, as well as to accelerate the digital transformation of HE.
References
1. IIOE Development Report (2019-2022):
https://en.ichei.org/Uploads/Download/2023-04-10/6433e2356aa2a.pdf
2. Smart Classroom Project: https://ichei.org/Uploads/Download/2021-06-23/60d2e3382382e.pdf
3. On-site capacity building seminars: Capacity Building Seminars-20201124.pdf
4. Research Report on Digital Transformation of Higher Education Teaching and Learning. https://en.ichei.org/Uploads/Download/2022-05-16/62820a2a9bceb.pdf
5. UNESCO-Shenzhen Funds-in-Trust Project for Higher Education: Building staff capacity for ICT-driven innovation in Cambodia and Sri Lanka. https://en.ichei.org/Uploads/Download/2021-06-07/60bd89e6d05a6.pdf
6. Policy Brief-Building ecosystems for online and blended learning: Advancing equity and excellence in higher education in the Asia-Pacific https://en.ichei.org/Uploads/Download/2021-06-07/60bdc4c2a6643.PDF
7. Strengthening Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Africa UNESCO-Shenzhen Funds-in-Trust Africa Project
https://en.ichei.org/Uploads/Download/2021-06-07/60bd8bd70af14.pdf Rakhmatullaev M. Problems and achievements in the digital transformation of higher education in Central Asian countries. Information journal CLOUD. Published by the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO. №5. 2022. Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China. 8-10 p. https://ru.ichei.org/Uploads/Download/2022-11-22/637c8bb9a3afd.pdf
