Digital Technologies, Disruption and the role of Universities

To set the context - Between 1985 and 1989, the Cray-2 was the world’s fastest computer. It was roughly the size of a washing machine. Today, a smart watch has twice its capabilities.

While more than 43 % of the world population is connected to the internet with a vast majority of this percentage coming from the developed world, the UN has set the ambitious goal of connecting all the world’s inhabitants to affordable internet by 2020. However, despite the fact that this target looks a bit unrealistic as we near the end of 2019, we have witnessed unprecedented increased access to information, education and global marketplaces, which will empower many people to improve their living conditions and escape poverty. As per the World Economic Forum these 7 technologies are actually changing our world – and this is what is being termed as the 4th Industrial Revolution.

1. Big Data and Artificial Intelligence
2. Digital Health
3. Large Scale Digitization
4. Internet of Things
5. Blockchain
6. Digital Learning
7. Wearable Internet

So, within a small island context, where we are used to be mainly consumers of technology, we need to transform our environment to become innovators and game changers to address the main challenges related to sustainable development, agriculture, health, education, climate amongst others. We need to look into how can research, innovation and development of digital technologies and innovative applications of same can empower small island states to address key issues related to the SDGs through enhanced partnerships between public – private – government – academia. It is preferable to embrace disruption before getting disrupted.

Some key leading questions for this session that we hope will be covered:

• How do we maintain such an ecosystem with these key stakeholders to achieve those goals?
• What are the gaps and how to address gaps related to skills mismatch and the collaboration between academia and the private sector?
• What type of educational model and curricula that we must focus on?
• Can we still focus on the same old recipe to achieve a different outcome?
• What type of transformation our education system has to go through to ensure we remain contextually relevant to the i4.0 era?

There were two keynote speakers and five panelists. Out of the five panelists, three were from industry while two of them represented academia. The keynote speaker, Prof Moran from Curtin University, focused his speech on the role of universities to convert threats related to industry 4.0 into opportunities. He stresses on the role and relevance of Universities in the digital era of disruption while emphasizing on the need to strengthen the partnerships with the private sector. It is however clear that Universities cannot envisage the status-quo scenario. Mr Tan Chee-Peng centred his keynote speech on the importance of a shift in mindset to embrace disruption in the industry 4.0 context. Each of the panelists described key projects and cases from industry on the types of innovation that they were bringing to their own context. Projects on e-Health for example were being undertaken at the level of State Informatics Limited. The representative from Ceridian Mauritius coined the idea of Creativity 1.0 taking over from Industry 4.0. In light with the mindset change as highlighted by Mr Tan Chee-Peng, Mr Mooneegan of Ceridian requested UoM to champion a forum with key stakeholders on Society 5.0.

As a concluding note from the Chair of the session, it was highlighted that we tend often to oversimplify the problem by stating – “Either embrace disruption or be disrupted”, but it was clear from the different speakers that there is much more to look at especially from the perspectives of Universities and their leadership roles in the development of a so-called “ecosystem of disruption”. From that, the need for closer ties between University, Government and the Private Sector becomes more obvious – the triple helix model. However, in so doing a number of ethical issues have to be addressed, as highlighted by the different speakers and at the same time, it is important that Universities do not compromise on their core values, independence and academic freedom.

Internationalisation of Higher Education in Africa : Issues and Opportunities

The UNESCO Symposium on Higher Education was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 24th to 27th July at the Ethiopian Airlines Aviation Academy. The key theme of the conference was Internationalization of Higher Education in Africa and same was addressed through a series of high-level panel discussions and interactions with the participants. One of the sessions was specifically devoted to “Collaborations between African HEIs to contribute towards the SDGs”. A major factor that was highlighted (among other classic factors such as research, engagement with local communities, continuing dialogue with stakeholders, collaboration & exchanges) was the promotion of intra-African mobility. It was highlighted that intra-African mobility was a real short-coming as many African institutions were mainly looking to the north for partnerships and as a result, neglected internationalization within Africa.  

One keynote speaker highlighted, according to him, the key mistakes that African countries were making while focusing on internationalization. He stressed that in so doing, many countries or Higher Education institutions in Africa were merely copying and pasting what was done by other countries mainly in the developed world in terms of their strategy. His main argument was that internationalization within Africa (what he calls Africanization) was a key step towards strengthening Higher Education Systems in Africa globally. The argument was that a power relationship would still hold when African HEIs partner with those in the North which is not necessarily good for developing countries in the long term. Internationalization of HEIs in Africa has to preserve local contexts, identities, cultures and practices and has to result in the export of these to the global world. The downside of internationalization has also been highlighted, such as increased competition for student recruitment, access to research funds and rat-race for publications. Internationalization activities have also been limited to a handful who have the means to travel abroad (e.g. student exchange). 

The internationalization strategy of the University of Mauritius was also presented to the participants of the Masterclass workshop on internationalization and the different components that has been put in place under these strategies. The issue of different secondary educational qualifications within different African countries and their equivalence to meet entry requirements at the University was lengthily discussed and different participants shared their own models and experiences. The moderator highlighted that in the US or UK Universities, they deal with the problem through the Foundation course for African students from those particular countries (who do not have a direct equivalence to match formal entry requirements). While the UNESCO through a presentation regarding conventions for recognition and equivalence of post-secondary educational qualifications in Africa urged countries, who have not yet ratified the convention to do so, it was highlighted that there was a dire need for an African Transnational Qualification Framework that would help address the gaps and harmonize the secondary education qualifications and quality throughout the African community.

The role of Digital Technologies in the internationalization process could not be overlooked and there was a growing consensus among the participants. For a long time, e-learning has been seen as a new form of distance education. However, the emergence of digital technologies, high-performance telecommunications infrastructure has given rise to a completely new dimension to the educational transaction. One speaker coined the idea of having common first year modules for a number of African Universities online to achieve the so-called Africanization of Higher Education. Such modules could be either taught by one lead academic from one University or jointly taught depending on the model in place. Such measures largely made possible by new technologies is a key enabler for internationalization of African universities.