How resilient, dynamic, and inclusive is today's higher education?
Covid-19 pandemic took the world by surprise and two years later we find ourselves still trying to adapt to the changes that were brought by the pandemic. Higher Education sector was presented with the biggest test of resilience and institutions of higher learning were forced to think differently and transition . This transition came with challenges within the higher education sector. As Albert Eisntein say, “in the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunities ”. There were also opportunities identified, ome of those opportunities were to introduce online teaching and learning platforms, hybrid and remote working models. These opportunities yielded in the following benefits:
- Cost Effectiveness
- Flexibility in teaching and learning
- Better work life balance
- Better Student Engagement
Institutions had to invest in smart digital technologies in order to support the transition and provide supreme service delivery. We are living in the era where academics, support staff and students need to have some knowledge in digital technologies and introduction of digital literacy is important. As the world evolve and technology changes, our education systems must also become dynamic. We need to move from static to dynamic digital technologies which will allow academics and students to interact globally. These dynamic technologies will also assist them to work together in a collaborative manner to share some content and knowledge.
"Leveraging revolutionary technology to support digitization for a sustainable future!"
IT leaders and professionals in higher education had to come on board to support this transition within the sector. Technology must be used to transform institutional operations by digititizing information, automating and streamlining processes. Hybrid teaching and learning is a new world of education and IT professionals needs to create the best environment for both students and staff. IT professionals can “leverage revolutionary technology to support digitization for a sustainable future” by:
- Ensuring access to technology and online resources
- Enabling collaborative learning opportunities through virtual classrooms.
- Supporting seamless hybrid learning
- Providing online methods of communication
- Automating and streamlining process
- Tightening cybersecurity
- Cloud migration
As we drive the change of technology in higher education we need to also address the challenges that come with this transformation. We need to ensure that we have clear IT strategies, good technology infrastructure, proper change managent, skilled resources to support the change and also look at the inequality in education. As we move along, higher education sector needs to come up with a long term strategic plan to provide efficient and inclusive solutions while adapting to change.