ICDE Quality Network Webinar Series: #3 - International reflections on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic (recording available)

The third webinar in the webinar series showcasing the ICDE Quality Network, "International reflections on lessons learned during the COVID-I9 pandemic" was presented by Regional Focal Points from Africa and Europe.

The third webinar was opened by ICDE Secretary General, Ms. Torunn Gjelsvik, and chaired by Professor Alan Tait (Open University, UK) and showcased two regional speakers from the European and African continents with a specific look at quality assurance and how QA has been affected during the COVID19 Pandemic. The European Regional Focal Point, George Ubachs, Managing Director at the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) in the Netherlands and Professor Nebath Tanglang, Director of Academic Planning at National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Nigeria both gave the audience their regional perspectives on the matter at hand.

George Ubachs (EADTU) discussed how the pandemic has presented challenges for policy makers, with issues including how to ensure students “make up for the learning loss” they experienced during the lockdown, as well as alternative learning methods of delivering teaching and learning and how they can adequately be put into place. There have been student protests taking place across the Netherlands, as students have been severly disappointed in online learning and the effect it has had on their learning experience.

Professor Tanglang (NOUN) highlighted the effects of shutting down schools and universities had in Nigeria, over 50 million school children and 1.7 million university students were kept at home during this time. Rural area schools had no seen benefits from the distance education emergency measures put into place but NOUN was able to implement their own versions of Proctoring Software, which has proven to be quite successful. New and emerging technologies were able to come to light during these dark times but the severe lack of capactiy has hindered every student from being able to benefit from these technological advancements.

To continue the presentations and conversations had, refer to the links listed below:

The recording of the webinar can be found here.

Find George Ubachs’ (Europe) presentation here.

Find Professor Nebath Tanglang’s (Africa) presentation here.