CEMCA-UGC Bangladesh CBP on Online & Blended Learning

CEMCA, in collaboration with the University Grants Commission (UGC), Bangladesh organized a Capacity Building Program on “Online and Blended Learning” for the Higher Education Teachers of Bangladesh. The duration of the program was for 26 days, encompassing both synchronous and asynchronous mode with learning content for 6 days and 20 days respectively. The Capacity Building Programme began on 23 September 2021. The objective was to empower higher education teachers from 20 Universities of Bangladesh to implement Online and Blended Learning in higher education. Prof. Dr. Kazi Shahidullah, Chairman, UGC Bangladesh launched this project. In his opening remarks, he said that “capacity building of HE teachers is essential as there is paradigm shift in the delivery of education. Challenge for UGC, Bangladesh is to adjust to the changes. Administrators have to be alert and changes have to be made according to the market needs”. He wished all success with tangible outcomes during the inaugural session. In the inaugural session , UGC Members, Director CEMCA and Treasurer of Bangladesh Open University were present. Dr. Manas Ranjan Panigrahi, CEMCA and Mr. Mohammad Maksudur Rahman Bhuiyan, UGC were coordinating the activities. The training programme was conducted by the two resource persons, Mr Purandar Sengupta (Master Trainer & Mentor) and Prof. Shaunak Roy (Assistant Professor, St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata).

The program enlightened the participants about the intricacies of online and blending learning coupled with the versatile learning models and methods relevant to teaching in a blended context. The session also threw light upon the ICT tools that happen to be highly instrumental for teaching students in the online platform. The facilitators also addressed pertinent issues like facilitation and psychosocial interventions in higher education.

The program exerted immense influence on higher education teachers. Several of them favoured Blended Learning, citing its enormous importance in enabling shackle-free learning with greater degrees of autonomy. Using Bloom's Taxonomy as a basis, participants brainstormed strategies to integrate various models of blended learning and make the curriculum more employment-centric.