Internationalization and COVID-19

Healthy Monday to all ka!

I don't think we can get away from COVID-19 wherever we go and whatever we do na ka. I didn't plan to write anything related to it yet after having read this article, 'COVID-19: The internationalisation revolution that isn’t' by Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit in University World News March 2020, I decided to write about it right away.

The challenge came from this statement ka:

'.....learning longer-term lessons and effective strategic planning have not been a strength of the academic community. Will the current crisis be a wake-up call?'

I couldn't agree more and have been thinking of why our higher education institutions don't have this strength and how we could act to become stronger. 

If it isn't our strength, it could be time to invite outside experts to run the universities on not too technical stuff?!? When it comes to technical, we sure need to use the principle of design thinking to focus on our learners from their perspective and needs, not from ours as we usually do and have been doing na ka.

May I also share more views on IZN during this outbreak as well ka.

The authors point out that there could be unintended positive impact on higher education to see more online teaching and learning and the related cut in carbon footprint, as well as to lower our far-too-dependence (revenue-oriented institutions will suffer most) on some countries especially China. They think it's likely to be a significant temporary decline and longer-term, more modest decrease, although China still stands out.

They have some reservations about the increase in online courses in terms of quality as it takes time and support. 'Making these changes quickly is a guarantee of low quality. And quality drops further when many students are lacking sufficient equipment at home, such as a poor internet connection or a lack of privacy...'

This COVID-19 sure gives many lessons on all sectors. Producing lots of goods and offering so many services geared at Chinese customers are causing lots of chain reactions. I'm  also eager to know about the 'JIT' approach and business ways to handle it amid the supply chain breakdown. 

Well! still hopeful things will go back to normal soon ka.

Stay fit na ka.

Porntip