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Africa – South Africa
Project seeks to save water
Alternative water founts are being explored by the Water Research Flagship Project, led by scientists of the University of South Africa. Building more infrastructure and larger-scale water transfers do not seem to be a real solution to the already critical water situation in South Africa, a country with a rainfall average hardly arriving at 50% of the world’s average. That is the reason for this group, coordinated by the Department of Civil and Chemical Engineering, to develop a study on new water sources, such as the recycling of wastewater, water conservation, rainwater harvesting and water desalination, among others.
The climate change complicates this problematic situation, making more difficult the objective of closing the gap between rural and urban areas in terms of water supply and water sanitation. However, this is a country that aims to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The Flagship Project is already walking in this way, but to get there it will be necessary major level of cooperation and public understanding.
More information about the project and the seminar content is available at UNISA’s website.
Arab States – Jordan
Towards the effectively performance of Academy
The Faculty of Arts at the University of Jordan (GUNI member trough its UNESCO Chair in Leadership Studies) launched an important initiative to open the discussion for educational process and learning’s review. The Science Day, a series of meetings that were held at the Faculty of Arts in the door of its 50 anniversary. At the opening ceremony of the Science Day, speakers referred to issues such as how old teaching models based on schemes of memorization and limited data left students in a passive situation of being “recipients”, and how these old schemes had to be switched by a comprehensive approach to scientific activities. The methods of teaching and learning resources must be seriously reviewed in order to face, in an effectively way, the challenges of the knowledge era.
The strengths and weaknesses of the model have to be determined for the advancement of the educational processes in an era characterized by widespread and rapid information technology. There is a dissemination of negative phenomena at universities, like the dependence to internet, which allows the extraction of scientific research data with little effort from the students. The students are the ultimate goal for direct teaching, so changes have to be made. For instance, the focus could be pointed not on how easily the information is obtained, but in the view, organization and practical application of that data. On this Science Day, three sessions took place with meetings focused in themes of education programs, institutional performance, strategies for interactive learning, motivation, methodologies and tests design, among others.
Asia and Pacific – Brunei and Korea
Sharpening leaders’ talents
On its third edition, the School Leadership Programme at the University of Brunei, associated to the GUNI member ASAHIL (Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of High Learning) started its activities for transforming the quality of educational instruction in Brunei. According to the leader of the programme it was designed to uncover, deepen and build the participants’ natural strengths as a leader.
With 97 schools and 291 teachers involved in this programme, positive changes are already noticed. Changes are not only limited to academic traditional areas, but expanded to activities as loud reading, the use of video links and technological skills. According to the programme coordinator, it was not an easy job to become a transformational leader and uplift students' achievements in a short period of time, but it is critical that school leaders develop skills in becoming visionary leaders capable of carrying out changes.
Green development paradigm in Korea
As an agreement with the Ministry of Environment and other relevant public and private enterprises, the University of Seoul decided to open the undergraduate course “Green Leadership Program”, an educational course created to establish a green development paradigm in the country. With the objective to foster green conscience among the future leaders of Korea, this program will be framed by the “Sustainable SNU Declaration” that was made by the Asian Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability in 2008.
At the moment it is conceived as an optional course, but it will probably become a mandatory one. Although another twenty universities attended the initial meeting where the agreement took place, the SNU’s Green Leadership Program is the first program launched by a university in Korea aimed at fostering global eco-friendly individuals. That is why it already has an important economical and technical support from the government and private enterprises, which made their bet on this program as a stepping stone in the formation of global leaders.
Europe and North America - Spain
Implementing Tool and Policies for Quality Work at institutional Level
The first training seminar of the project UNIQTOOL was held by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Spain. This project aims to facilitate the inclusion of policies and tools which assure the quality of higher education at some Eastern Europe universities. So far, institutions from Belarus, Ukraine and Uzbekistan are part of this project, which is already working to encourage the cooperation between partners in order to give major accessibility to modern quality programmes.
The UNIQTOOL project is within the framework of Tempus, the European Union’s programme that supports the modernization of higher education in the Partner Countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Western Balkans and the Mediterranean region, mainly through university cooperation projects.
With an estimate of 3 years of duration, UNIQTOOL is coordinated by the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden, and has the UNESCO Chair of Higher Education Management (CUDU), the Polytechnic of Torino and the Tallin University
of Technology as European partners.
Latin America and Caribbean – Venezuela
The University travels by canoe
Within the framework of the cooperation programme between the Experimental Pedagogic University Libertador, Venezuela (GUNI member through its UNESCO chair for Peace) and the Amazonas state’s govern, indigenous peoples from Maco, Hoti, Hüottoja, Yekuana, Yabarana, Jivi, Piaroa, Baniva, Curripacos, Baré, Piapoco, Puinave, and Yeral towns have now access to formal higher education.
Ready to go by canoes or barges and no matter how difficult the weather conditions could be, professors from the UPEL accomplished their educative mission getting to remote places to train more than 700 teachers from this jungle region, who received courses especially designed for their needs, such as Educational Research and Intercultural Bilingual Education, Ethnomathematics, Teaching of Language and Literature, Sociolinguistic Mapping, Cosmo-vision and Self-Education as well as refresher courses on Early Education and Education Management.
This program is aimed to offer equal opportunities to a multicultural society that aspires to form human talent with skills for living respectfully and for facing the today’s social changes. The courses are contextualized to the particular social and natural environment of these indigenous peoples, but without leaving aside the need to understand the contribution of technology to the improvement of the quality of life, although from a critic point of view.
Friday, July 23, 2010
