In 2022, "Transforming Education" as a critical global agenda reiterates the need to address the intensified challenges higher education encounters and calls for prompt action on digital learning and transformation. To respond to the learning crisis and continuously catalyze the digital transformation of higher education, mobilizing quality online learning and blended learning has been a consensus globally. Along the line, UNESCO initiated a new social contract reimagining education for the future that includes action tracks on building more open and connected higher education institutions. Creating quality open educational resources, and promoting knowledge sharing in teacher professional development continue to facilitate this process as key scaffolds.
The International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI), closely aligns its mission with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which focuses on the digital transformation of higher education in developing countries, and further expand opportunities for lifelong learning and quality and equitable education through building the capacity of university teachers for the digital future. In 2019, with the support of the Tencent Charity Foundation, UNESCO-ICHEI joined hands with 11 partner universities, 8 international education technology enterprises, and 4 Chinese universities to form the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE), a collaborative network of higher education stakeholders. On the premise of co-construction and sharing, IIOE made progress in curating professional development resources, empowering infrastructure upgrades in partner institutions, promoting the quality assurance frameworks, and improvement of digital teaching and learning in higher education. Through a series of measures such as joint research, regional studies, and pilot projects, and relying on the IIOE National Center mechanism, localisation practice and implementation of the digital teaching improvement plan, UNESCO-ICHEI and partner networks have formulated a series of shareable practical results around the digital transformation of higher education.
The pandemic era made a push on higher education institutions to make active responses and progress in digital transformation at various levels. Meanwhile, IIOE has also thrived through continuous transformation and innovation. In this context, UNESCO-ICHEI sincerely extends the invitation to IIOE National Centres and global partners to share and consolidate best practices, discuss the trends and insights in transforming higher education, and jointly envision the way forward of higher education digital transformation.
Conference Theme
Conference Objectives
The International Higher Education Digital Transformation Conference will invite partners and stakeholders from higher education institutions, colleagues from UNESCO and international organisations to:
• Share knowledge and consolidate recommendations from the "Empowering Teacher's Digital Teaching and Learning Pilot Projects"
• Map the status and identify challenges of the higher education transformation in partner institutions and their regions
• Gather research-based insights that feed into reforming the future-facing education
• Introduction of the joint-research projects that aims to facilitate knowledge sharing among the IIOE network
• Summarize best practices and case studies from the IIOE pilot projects and make more concrete action plans for the next phase of digital transformation of higher education teaching and learning
• Initiate a conversation around emerging trends and visions for the future of education and higher education digital transformation
Event Information
Date and Time：February 28, 2023, 4:00-6:00 pm (UTC+8)
Meeting Format: Hybrid Format via a ZOOM Meeting
Meeting Link: [ Ссылка ]
Offline Meeting Location: Conference Centre at Southern University of Science and Technology
Target Audience：IIOE partners from higher education institutions, enterprises, UNESCO systems and international organisations, and higher education stakeholders
Language: English and Chinese, with simultaneous interpretation to six official languages of the United Nations (EN, CN, FR, ES, AR, RU)
Co-hosts
• International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI)
• IIOE Rotating Presidency Unit for 2023 (University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia)
• UNESCO
• Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO)
• Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)
