ICT Leadership in Higher Education, 24-26 February 2013
Honourable Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India, Dr. M.M. Pallam Raju will inaugurate the maiden ICT Leadership in Higher Education event organised by the Commonwealth Educational Media centre for Asia (CEMCA) in the evening of 24 February 2013 at Hotel Daspalla, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. The Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), New Delhi – regional centre of the Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver, Canada to support learning for development in the Commonwealth Asia, in partnership with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), the British Council in India, and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University shall organize a meeting of select Vice Chancellors of Open Universities and conventional universities in India from 25-26 February 2013. Prof. Arun Nigvekar, Former Chairman, University Grant Commission (UGC) will deliver the Keynote in the event.
It is expected that about 25 Vice Chancellors and 15 senior expert leaders from India, Malaysia, United Kingdom and USA in the areas of ICT policy in higher education, eLearning institutional strategy development, Open Educational Resources, and Open Access to scientific information and research will participate in the event. Integrating Information and Communication technologies (ICTs) in education is highly challenging, especially in the higher education sector. While there are several factors for successful integration of ICTs in teaching and learning, strong leadership support and institutional commitment play significant role. While distributed leadership and shared responsibility are necessary to sustain any innovation and implementation of technology plan in higher education, the vision of leadership with reference to ICTs become important in taking initiatives, and develop action plan for implementation. A successful ICT leader in education should be able to lead from the front to give vision and also manage change and influence major stakeholders’ buy-in. The programme intends to create awareness of ICT integration in teaching and learning, and it will sensitize institutional leaders about the importance of developing technology master plan. The specific objectives of the programme are to:
• Provide a platform for institutional leaders to discuss issues related to use of ICTs in teaching and learning in higher education; and
• Assist the participant leaders to develop strategic plan and roadmap for ICT application in all activities of the university.
It is expected that the participants will implement some of the ideas to be discussed in the event in their respective institution, while it will serve as a platform for sharing and discussing best practices, and identify issues to streamline use of ICT in higher education institutions for teaching and learning. The activity is part of CEMCA’s Three Year Plan (2012-15) and will be repeated every year to engage with higher education leaders. It may be noted that Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University is celebrating 30 years of its service to the nation in democratizing higher education. IGNOU’s Inter-University Consortium for Technology Enabled Education and Development (IUC-TEFED) is supporting the participation of Vice Chancellors of the State Open Universities in the event, and the British Council is supporting to bring five experts from the UK to share their experiences in use of ICTs in higher education institutions.
