MIDDLE EAST-NORTH AFRICA

‘No going back’: Digital HE conference explores future

At a conference on digital universities that opened in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Monday 12 September, speakers explored topics like what universities will look like in the aftermath of COVID-19 and the digital change it accelerated in higher education, and how ready universities in the Middle East and North Africa are for a full transition to digital learning, writes Samar Kadi for Al-Fanar Media.

The three-day conference, called THE Digital Universities MENA 2022, was organised by the British company Times Higher Education and co-hosted by Khalifa University of Science and Technology. Speakers agreed that “college teaching will never be the same again” after the COVID-19 pandemic and that “there is no going back” to previous methods fully.

Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, education minister of the United Arab Emirates, described the pandemic as “a blessing in disguise” because it thrust universities almost overnight into digital education.
Full report on the Al-Fanar Media site