UMT conducted first All Pakistan Online Education Summit (APOES 2020)
Saturday, May 16 2020
The education of students has been disrupted and impacted in an unprecedented fashion due to the novel coronavirus pandemic leading to forced closures of all academic institutes on a nationwide basis. University of Management and Technology (UMT) was one of the very few universities that moved seamlessly to online mode of instruction. We had already developed a digital teaching and learning regulatory framework that made the transition in the time of campus closures a relatively painless easy step to undertake.
In this uncertain environment to mobilise Pakistan’s educational community for ensuring students’ success, UMT participated in the “All Pakistan Online Education Summit (APOES 2020)” conducted on May 16-19 2020. The summit was organised in collaboration with Hybrid Institute of Contemporary Studies, an organization working to provide practical, skills-based and entrepreneurial education to our youth. The aim of APOES was not to merely identify challenges but to collaboratively find solutions with the help of national and international scholars and experts in order to continuing to shape the digital landscape of academia in Pakistan.
Serving as a leader in the sphere of online learning, UMT is providing access to best practices, research, tools, information about latest trends as well as other online learning resources for the educators’ community through the UMT-CONNECTED portal located at http://connected.umt.edu.pk.
The Summit consisted of presentations, panel discussions, live chat, and debates that concentrated on sub-themes such as Covid-19 and its impact on social, domestic, and emotional life, and local and global economy, switch to online learning and teaching, emerging teaching methodologies and literature, new workplace challenges, transforming linguistic and behavioural patterns, changing faces of cyber technology and security, pandemic preparedness and public resistance, and other themes that are relevant to our current scenario. The summit presented a learning opportunity for the students, educators and administrators to adopt effective solutions to help traverse the maze of obstacles and challenges facing academia during the pandemic.
Student, faculty, staff and families are at the heart of everything UMT does and we are committed to ensure that everyone has a positive learning experience, whether online blended or at campus. We are now aiming to develop new and permanent systems to meet the need which have been so glaringly exposed in this crisis.
The event’s vision was successfully achieved through an audience-centered podium, where experiences, ideas and research was shared through an interactive platform created to counter the challenges of the world shaken by Covid-19. Surely, the Summit set new standards of accepting the challenges and bringing the best out of this new forced normal. We at AAQIC/QEC, extend our special thanks to the Organising Partner: Hybrid Institute of Contemporary Studies (PK), Event Partners: University of Management and Technology (PK) and Virtual University (PK); and International Partners: Quality Matters (USA) and Acadeum (USA). The conference has been a great success in all possible prospects.