President of Qatar University, Dr. Hassan Al Derham, addressing a panel discussion held yesterday under an online seminar which is being organised by WISE of Qatar Foundation.
President of Qatar University, Dr. Hassan Al Derham, has said that the university has received positive indication about online learning which was launched after emergence of COVID-19 and it is ready for any scenario to welcome the next semester.
“Now we have finished the semester. We went through the examinations. The feedback which we received from our faculties and students as well as the evaluation gave good and positive indication about the online learning experience,” said Dr. Hassan Al Derham.
He said that Qatar University is evaluating now different scenario to come back for fall semester 2020 and it will be ready for any scenario that will have to deal.
Dr. Al Derham was speaking in a panel discussion on ‘how do we best measure school and system responses to the crisis? What can we learn from this to build better, more resilient systems for the future?’.
The panel discussion was held yesterday under an online seminar, a three day event which is being organised by WISE of Qatar Foundation.
“Higher education faced challenges of COVID-19 epidemic and got opportunity as well. This epidemic taught us that the entire world is interconnected like a small village so if any such thing happens anywhere, the rest part of the world is also affected,” said Al Derham. He said that Qatar has financial resources, ability and flexibility to response swiftly to such challenges.
“Qatar University already started three years ago digital transformation strategy so when COVID-19 emerged, we were almost ready to react within a couple of days in switching from classroom teaching to online learning system,” said Al Derham.
He said that it was challenging for students and faculty members in the beginning but they took the challenges and moved towards the new mode of teaching. “During first two weeks we also changed the mode of tests and evaluation adjusting accordingly,” said Al Derham.
He said that the key word is to be flexible, lenient and react fast to meet the challenges caused by COVID-19 to the education sector.
“The most important thing for higher education and universities is to focus on making plan and strategy based on workforce and how to provide graduate attributes and skills to workforce,” said Al Derham.
He said that in the world of rapid advancement of the technology, the graduates should have general skills on how to become a proactive.
“When we started the transformation of digital education three years ago in Qatar University some colleagues were reluctant to move in this direction”
“But now this epidemic gave opportunity to see how this world is changing very fast and most of our colleagues are on board to move on and we have to move fast to meet the challenges,” said Al Derham.
The panel discussion was moderated by Clare Shine, Vice President and Chief Program Officer, Salzburg.
The panelists included Olli Pekkah Heinonen, Director General, Finnish National Agency for Education: Staneala Beckley, Chair, Sierra Leone Teaching Service Commission and Dr. Hassan Al Derham, President, Qatar University.
