Despite its small size, Malta’s higher education faces similar challenges as much larger nations. ICT will play an ever more important role in the thinking of the definition of higher education access, life-long learning and quality assurance measures in the emerging contexts of real and virtual environments.
These issues were discussed in the annual Education Leaders Forum (ELF) held by Microsoft at the renowned Pasteur Institute in Paris. The Maltese Government participated for the second consecutive year with a delegation composed of the Director General for Quality and Standards in Education Dr Grace Grima, the Director for Curriculum Management and e-Learning Mr Ray Camilleri, the Chairman for the National Commission for Higher Education Dr Philip von Brockdorff and the CEO for the National Commission for Higher Education Mr Jacques Sciberras. The delegation was accompanied by Ms Fabianne Ruggier, the Academic Programme Manager for Microsoft Malta.
The Education Leaders Forum was held back-to-back with UNESCO’s World Conference on Higher Education at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Hundreds of Ministers and policy-makers attended the UNESCO conference, which was a follow-up convention after 10 years, to discuss how government and higher education institutions should strategise their education policies to meet the current and emerging dynamics of sustainable socio-economic development.
The delegates stayed over for the full day organised by Microsoft debating the policies that worldwide governments and higher education institutions should adopt for the coming years to close-down the gap between the supply of higher education and the demand of the industry for building new skills. Panel experts and Microsoft executives highlighted the role of ICT in the potential transformation of Higher Education and the role of multi-stakeholder partnerships in supporting this transformation.
Microsoft also held a ‘lean forward’ meeting, involving ministers, senior policy-advisors and universities rectors in evaluating current policies and re-visioning these strategies for recovery through collaborative round-tables. During the meeting, Microsoft raised awareness on its free and low cost resources to help ministries and institutions in planning and retooling for the current needs of their learners, economies and societies.
In the words of Dr Grima “in the emerging contexts of real and virtual learning environments, these events lead policy makers to rethink the definition of access to higher education, explore the enormous potential vis-a-vis lifelong education, and reflect on the challenges associated with quality assurance measures.”
According to Dr von Brockdorff, “ICT will play an ever more important role in higher education. ELF highlighted ways in which technology can serve the expanding needs of society for access to knowledge and skills, and the transformational role of ICT in the distribution of higher education programmes, the effective administration of institutions and their respective teaching and research related operations.”
Mr Sciberras stated that the forum served as an opportunity to share experiences in different countries on common themes relating to the future of higher education and the different approaches being sought to address common challenges. “Microsoft Malta endeavours to continue collaborating with government and institutions to support the realisation of their reform goals by leveraging on its technology, partners and resources to contribute to national education objectives and benchmarks,” said Ms Ruggier. Thus participation at the events by the Malta Government and the National Commission for Higher Education was actively promoted by Microsoft Malta because of the direct relevance and benefits that these knowledge-sharing and networking sessions have for the education context in Malta.