ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has said that Pakistan is moving towards developing a non-elitist society, and in this pursuit, the hybrid mode of learning can play a vital role.

He said that Pakistan was quickly transitioning into an era, wherein hybrid education was changing the whole spectrum of society by opening new possibilities and opportunities.

It has made knowledge dynamic and non-static.

He made these remarks, while addressing the closing session of the three-day Pak-UK Education Gateway virtual conference entitled, “Rethinking and Reshaping a Resilient Higher Education System” that concluded on Thursday.

The conference was jointly organised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the British Council.

Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mahmood and HEC Chairman Tariq Banuri also attended the session.

The three days of the conference brought together scholars and higher education experts from the UK and Pakistan to share how universities in both the countries have responded to the Covid-19 scenario, and discussed further strengthening of strategic transnational education partnership between the two countries.

Various sessions of the conference focused on building a sustainable future for international higher education, role of higher education leadership during Covid-19, international collaborations and internationalisation of the higher education, future of distance learning, and mobility programmes.

Dr Arif Alvi, while emphasizing for enhanced international cooperation and free flow of knowledge, called for ensuring less copyrighted and inexpensive education considering the poverty across the world.

“We should make the flow of knowledge less copyrighted, much more freer than ever before. If we want the world [to] make progress, it is important that knowledge should be less expensive because it is misery that there is poverty throughout the world,” the president said addressing a virtual Pak-UK Education Gateway Conference.

Calling for exchange of knowledge among the countries, the president said the Covid-19 had dragged the institutions and countries to adopt new highways for imparting education.

He said currently, the students and teachers interacted with the new gateway, though Pakistan was already pursuing the idea of distance learning as the country had Allama Iqbal Open University and Virtual University imparting distance education.

He said in the Covid-era, the knowledge had changed from mere books to a dynamic form, and called for enhanced access of knowledge to students.

He said facing a different issue, Pakistan needed to ensure less expensive education and appreciated the idea of distance learning for it being cheaper and accessible to even women sitting at home.

The distance learning institutes cost one-fourth of other universities making it affordable.

The president also congratulated Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood and Chairman of the Higher Education Commission Tariq Banuri for quickly transforming to hybrid learning amid Covid-19.

He said the distance learning would also empower women by opening up new possibilities for them.

He lauded the HEC for coming up with a policy of distance learning by ensuring access of students with increased bandwidth as they had been facing problems in some areas.

He said as the hybrid learning linked the students through a knowledge base, it was equally essential to train the teachers to handle the system.

However, in this era of hybrid learning, the difficult part was conducting the examination, which needed to be worked out with the passage of time.

The president said the Covid-19 would leave a footprint on the education system and the quantum of learning abilities and highways created due to the pandemic would make it easier for the world to impart education in a professional manner.

He spoke high of the cooperation by British Council and Pakistani diaspora in the UK for promotion of education by sharing their experiences and skills with the universities.

The president appreciated the HEC-BC partnerships, which have led to development of Pakistan’s first Open and Distance Learning Policy.

He emphasized that the Covid-19, besides its catastrophic impacts on all the spheres of life, would leave strong imprints on the education system, and that the situation had created opportunities by making institutions adopt new highways towards progress.

Dr Alvi asserted that the hybrid learning had made it easier for women to get educated and empowered, adding that it was one of the government’s priorities to make education less expensive and less elitist.

He said that the Pakistani universities were providing virtual and open learning much cheaper, compared to the rest of the world, and stressed the need for teachers to adapt themselves to the new teaching requirements.

“The faster we move, the sooner we will make it easier for people to acquire education in the prevailing situation.”

He also highlighted the need for development of a certification system to examine and assess students.

He also underlined the significance of the Pakistani diaspora in the UK and across the world, especially professionals, in terms of their role in the uplift of systems in the country.

Minister Shafqat Mahmood said that 1.5 million Pakistani youth were a critical asset of the country, and the government was committed to investing in youth development to position them in the global market.

Acknowledging the paramount importance of the UK’s education system, he said that Pakistan was also putting strenuous efforts to make its higher education system compatible with the best higher education sectors of the world.

“In this pursuit, the contributions of partners like the UK government and the British Council, who are consistently lending their hand to us, are highly valuable.”

The minister said that Pakistan appreciated the openness of the British people towards the Pakistani diaspora.

He said the programmes such as the Pak-UK Education Gateway could prove to be very helpful in rethinking and reshaping a resilient higher education sector.

He admired the role of this programme in developing Pakistan’s Open and Distance Learning Policy.

HEC Chairman Tariq Banuri congratulated the conference participants on the second anniversary of Pakistan-UK Education Gateway.

He emphasised that it was high time to strengthen international collaboration to share not only the best practices but also the challenges the entire world was facing in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.

“We have to learn from each other and advance our educational agenda forward.”

He said that as the Covid-19 had changed the world, including the higher education sector, the HEC adopted an eight-component approach to mitigate the disruption.

He also dilated on the measures taken for technology preparedness, teacher preparedness, student preparedness, course development, laboratories and libraries readiness, examination and evaluation mechanism, and student access to higher education.

In his remarks, Minister for South Asia, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Tariq Mehmood Ahmed said the HEC-BC partnership had ushered a new era of bilateral engagement and productive outcomes.

He said that the UK government attached high importance to supporting education in Pakistan.

He informed the participants that 35,000 Pakistani students had completed their degrees in the past few years in the UK universities, while 60,000 students were currently pursuing their degrees.

“These numbers will continue to grow, as we building on the success of the bilateral partnership.”

Pak-UK Education Gateway, launched in 2018, aims to further enhance partnership between the higher education sectors of Pakistan and the UK under a structured programme jointly sponsored by the Government of Pakistan and the British Council Pakistan.

Key areas of collaboration are innovative and collaborative research, higher education leadership, quality assurance and standard setting, distance learning, international mobility, community engagement and transnational education.

During the first year of execution, 21 travel and exploratory grants have enabled 50 plus faculty to meet relevant partners, seven large scale projects between UK and Pakistan have been shortlisted to embark upon crucial research ventures, strategic relationships have been developed between National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE) and Advance Higher Education UK to help enhance the governance systems and Quality Assurance Agency of the UK is closely working with HEC to help establish quality mechanisms for the higher education sector of Pakistan.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020