Keynote presentation: Reimagining higher education and research during post-COVID-19
Start Date
13-11-2020 1:15 PM
End Date
13-11-2020 2:00 PM
Description
Universities around the world are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. There has been a global devastation of the entire education sector. The health crisis and the accompanying education crisis are still continuing, and the end of the crisis is not certain. It is a challenging time for academic community to work under such an uncertainty. The immediate response everywhere to the outbreak of the virus was closure of the university campuses, disrupting almost all the academic activities everywhere. It seems there are no major exceptions. After the immediate reaction, as a short-term response, universities began offering some of the core programmes in education and research adopting digital technology on a large scale essentially, but not confining to, offering online teaching programmes. This is followed by a phase of partial, slow and cautious reopening of universities with several measures of safety. While some feel that the online methods have improved overall access, many argue that they exacerbate the existing inequalities in access to higher education and research among several groups of population. Research and publication programmes are also affected, and new short-term methods are being adopted. These emergency remote teaching/research practices have to be scaled up into full-fledged wellplanned online programmes. Among the research areas, given the urgency, much priority has been given to COVIDrelated research, and research programmes in other areas tend to suffer in terms of national priorities. As the global health emergency is still continuing, it is widely noted that we need to develop, after initial immediate responses, short-term, medium and long-term plans for developing robust higher education and research systems that contribute to knowledge development, reducing inequalities, and can face future uncertain emergencies. Many also consider the present situation as an important opportunity to bring in revolutionary reforms in higher education and research that are widely recognised as long overdue for transforming the higher education systems in a big way. The paper reviews some of the important developments that have taken place, and different perspectives that are emerging on the needed responses in this direction.
Recommended Citation
Tilak, J. B. G. (2020, November). Keynote presentation: Reimagining higher education and research during post-COVID-19. Presented at the Conference for Higher Education Research (CHER) - Hong Kong 2020. Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
Keynote presentation: Reimagining higher education and research during post-COVID-19
Universities around the world are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. There has been a global devastation of the entire education sector. The health crisis and the accompanying education crisis are still continuing, and the end of the crisis is not certain. It is a challenging time for academic community to work under such an uncertainty. The immediate response everywhere to the outbreak of the virus was closure of the university campuses, disrupting almost all the academic activities everywhere. It seems there are no major exceptions. After the immediate reaction, as a short-term response, universities began offering some of the core programmes in education and research adopting digital technology on a large scale essentially, but not confining to, offering online teaching programmes. This is followed by a phase of partial, slow and cautious reopening of universities with several measures of safety. While some feel that the online methods have improved overall access, many argue that they exacerbate the existing inequalities in access to higher education and research among several groups of population. Research and publication programmes are also affected, and new short-term methods are being adopted. These emergency remote teaching/research practices have to be scaled up into full-fledged wellplanned online programmes. Among the research areas, given the urgency, much priority has been given to COVIDrelated research, and research programmes in other areas tend to suffer in terms of national priorities. As the global health emergency is still continuing, it is widely noted that we need to develop, after initial immediate responses, short-term, medium and long-term plans for developing robust higher education and research systems that contribute to knowledge development, reducing inequalities, and can face future uncertain emergencies. Many also consider the present situation as an important opportunity to bring in revolutionary reforms in higher education and research that are widely recognised as long overdue for transforming the higher education systems in a big way. The paper reviews some of the important developments that have taken place, and different perspectives that are emerging on the needed responses in this direction.
Speaker
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, former Professor and Vice-Chancellor, National University of Educational Planning & Administration, is currently the ICSSR National Fellow & Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi, India. Doctorate from the Delhi School of Economics, Professor Tilak taught, besides in the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, in the University of Delhi, the Indian Institute of Education, and as a Visiting Professor, at Centre for International Cooperation in Education, Hiroshima University, Virginia University, and Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. Professor Tilak was also on the research staff of the World Bank, and has been a consultant to many national and international bodies. Author of several books including Economics of Inequality in Higher Education (Sage, 1987), Education for Development in Asia (Sage, 1994), Higher Education, Public Good and Markets (Routledge, 2018), and Education and Development in India: Critical Issues in Public Policy (Springer/Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Professor Tilak served as the Editor of Journal of Educational Planning and Administration. He also served as the President of the Comparative Education Society of India, and is on the Board of Comparative Education Society of Asia. Recipient of several honours and awards including Swami Pranavananda Saraswati National Award of the UGC (1999), Dr. Malcolm Adiseshiah Award (2003), Inspirational Teacher of the Year Global Education Award (2012), and Devang Mehta Award (2015) for outstanding conurbations to education (2015). Among many other honours, he had the privilege of delivering a keynote address in a meeting of the Noble laureates in Barcelona in 2005.