ICT Leadership in Higher Education, Kandy, Sri Lanka
New Delhi, 08/06/2014: A Regional Workshop on ICT Leadership in Higher Education was organized by the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), in association with the Open University of Sri Lanka at Kandy from 6-7 June 2014. CEMCA believes that Policy-Technology-Capacity are three pillars of any effective organization. While it provides capacity building support in technology related areas as a bottom-up approach to organizational effectiveness, in order to drive use of technology in higher education, it is engaged with institutional leaders for appropriate policy development. In the year 2012-13, CEMCA organized a workshop on the theme for the Vice Chancellors of select Indian universities.
The workshop in Kandy was organized for the Vice Chancellors of Sri Lanka. Some other leaders from India and Bangladesh also participated in the event. Inaugurating the event, Mr S.B. Dissanayake, honourable Minister for Higher Education, Sri Lanka urged the participating Vice Chancellors and leaders in higher education to focus on improving student learning through the use of appropriate information and communication technology. Prof. Ranjith Senarathne, Vice Chairman, UGC, Sri Lanka emphasized the role of ICT in improving Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER). The workshop focused on development of appropriate policies for use of ICT in the universities (Presentation by Dr. Palitha Edirisingha, UK), OER policies (Presentation by Dr. Sanjaya Mishra), and developing institutional strategies for open, distance and online learning (presentation by Prof. Som Naidu, Australia). Prof. Uma Coomaraswamy, Former Vice Chancellor of OUSL and Honorary Fellow, COL delivered the Keynote address on ICT as Change agent to set the tone of the workshop. Participating leaders discussed, and worked individually and in groups to equip themselves with better understanding to lead from the front in their respective institutions to use ICT for teaching, learning, research and administration.
The next edition of the event will be organized for select Vice Chancellors of Bangladesh in 2014-15.
