Keynote presentation : Challenges, impacts and crisis management on higher education and quality assurance under and after COVID-19 crisis: can Taiwan case be implicated?

Streaming Media

Start Date

13-11-2020 11:15 AM

End Date

13-11-2020 12:00 PM

Description

Since COVID-19 inevitably caused an educational crisis worldwide, most governments have temporarily closed educational institutions in order to contain the spread of the pandemic. The impacts on higher education include thousands of academic staff and students being suddenly forced to stay at home and learn online, the suspension of international mobility and travel, postponement of institutional entry examinations, and cut or cancelled government funding. These changes affect how universities are measured and student learning outcomes are assessed, in national and international contexts. In addition, a UNESCO survey report shows that most universities have administered examinations remotely via internal or institutional platforms or even postponed the whole academic year. At the same time, they have to apply alternative ways, with adapted methodologies, to assess student learning outcomes.

Higher education in Asia and its quality assurance mechanisms have been seriously threatened by virus pandemic in 2020. Most Asian institutions, guided by national authorities, have closed campuses, postponed examination, cancelled all large gatherings such as graduation and enrolment ceremonies, suspended cross-border research projects temporarily, enforced quarantine policy on all incoming international students, etc. Taiwan is one of the places whose campuses remained open normally after the outbreak of COVID-19, but all Taiwan’s universities took actions to ensure campus safety and quality of learning, in alignment with the Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC) measures and Ministry of Education (MOE) policy. Therefore, the presentation will focus on how government policies and crisis management impact quality assurance activities and accreditation services in higher education globally as well as in Taiwan.

Speaker

Angela Yung-chi Hou

Angela Yung-chi Hou, is a Professor of Higher Education at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Currently, she serves as Associate Dean of College of Education, National Chengchi University, as well as Executive Director of Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan. She was elected as Vice President of International Network of Quality Assurance in Higher Education (INQAAHE). She has been involved in quality assurance practices and international research for more than 15 years, including serving as Vice President of Asia Pacific Quality Network (APQN) and Board member of International Network of Quality Assurance in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and international reviewer of institutional and programme accreditation in several countries, including UK, Hong Kong, Macao, Philippines, Mongolia, etc.

She specialises in higher education policy, quality management, internationalisation, faculty development, and quality assurance of cross border higher education. She has been conducting several international higher education research projects funded by the Taiwan and US governments. She is also in the service of Chief-in-Editor of Higher Education Evaluation & Development Journal (HEED) by HEEACT and Journal of Higher Education by Taiwan Higher Education Society, and Associate Editor of Journal of Asian Pacific Educational Review (SSCI). Up to present, she has published more than 130 Chinese and English papers, articles, book chapters and reports in the areas of higher education evaluation, quality assurance, cross border higher education in local and international referred journals. In particular, 22 of them are highly impact SSCI journal articles. Since 2013, she has been recognised by the Springer as one of the top 24 Asian researchers in higher education field.

She is the author of CHEA Principles "Principle 1 Quality and higher education providers". In addition, she was the first Asian scholar interviewed by The Newsletter of the CHEA International Quality Group (CIQG). She edited Springer higher education series “Higher Education in East Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance” with other three top Asian Scholars. Up to present, there are nine monographs published in the series. Over years, she has been invited to several international organisations, including OECD, AQAN, ANQAHE, SEEI, IREG, HKCAAVQ, HEEC, AACCUP, PACUCOA, NAAC, British Council, INQAAHE, APEC, ENQA, APQN, ANQAHE, BAN-PT, EU SHARE to deliver keynote speeches, make presentations and run workshops on QA issues.

Recommended Citation

Hou, Y.-c. A. (2020, November). Keynote presentation: Challenges, impacts and crisis management on higher education and quality assurance under and after COVID-19 crisis: Can Taiwan case be implicated? Presented at the Conference for Higher Education Research (CHER) - Hong Kong 2020. Lingnan University, Hong Kong.

Share

COinS
 
Nov 13th, 11:15 AM Nov 13th, 12:00 PM

Keynote presentation : Challenges, impacts and crisis management on higher education and quality assurance under and after COVID-19 crisis: can Taiwan case be implicated?

Since COVID-19 inevitably caused an educational crisis worldwide, most governments have temporarily closed educational institutions in order to contain the spread of the pandemic. The impacts on higher education include thousands of academic staff and students being suddenly forced to stay at home and learn online, the suspension of international mobility and travel, postponement of institutional entry examinations, and cut or cancelled government funding. These changes affect how universities are measured and student learning outcomes are assessed, in national and international contexts. In addition, a UNESCO survey report shows that most universities have administered examinations remotely via internal or institutional platforms or even postponed the whole academic year. At the same time, they have to apply alternative ways, with adapted methodologies, to assess student learning outcomes.

Higher education in Asia and its quality assurance mechanisms have been seriously threatened by virus pandemic in 2020. Most Asian institutions, guided by national authorities, have closed campuses, postponed examination, cancelled all large gatherings such as graduation and enrolment ceremonies, suspended cross-border research projects temporarily, enforced quarantine policy on all incoming international students, etc. Taiwan is one of the places whose campuses remained open normally after the outbreak of COVID-19, but all Taiwan’s universities took actions to ensure campus safety and quality of learning, in alignment with the Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC) measures and Ministry of Education (MOE) policy. Therefore, the presentation will focus on how government policies and crisis management impact quality assurance activities and accreditation services in higher education globally as well as in Taiwan.