Daily Times

The growth of society is dependent on education, which is imparted in educational institutions by faculty members. The life cycle of the higher education system revolves around faculty members who are experts in their domain and possess skills for disseminating innovative ideas and knowledge of that domain. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) criteria for institutional accreditation mentions different ways of teaching, which can be adopted according to the need for the subject or institution. These are lectures, seminars, tutorials, discussions, seminars, demonstrations, distance learning, and other methods of instruction. The traditional model of teaching, as well as other modes of teaching, needs to be professionally designed and approved through respective statutory bodies.

HEC final guidelines for online teaching issued on April 17, 2020, require full preparedness of the faculty members for delivering online courses. It states that the content of the course should be developed for this new method of teaching, where the conventional lecture method may not work well as all students will be just hearing the voice of the faculty member. In order to develop their interest, the faculty members have to interact more often with different students by asking review questions or doing brainstorming during the introduction, after 15 mins of lecture, after 30 minutes of lecture, and at before the conclusion of the lecture.

The course content may have weekly reading material, discussion questions, quizzes, assignments, blogs, review reports, YouTube videos, etc. The Learning Management System is the first thing for which faculty members should be trained, and the Online Academic Council (OAC) will approve courses as well as related activities for each program. OAC is a new statutory body to be established at University for facilitating, supervising, and approving courses for all programs which are offered through online mode. OAC is also responsible for making necessary arrangements, including assuring proper infrastructure and readiness of the stakeholders. The complaints and disputes are also required to be resolved through this statutory arrangement.

HEC has also played its role at the national level, and the National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE) is given the task of identifying and certifying faculty training programs for online teaching

The faculty members are required to join various training for learning tools and techniques to deal with pre and post-class activities. The critical part of online teaching is assessment and examination, for which universities are required to distribute weightage to different activities properly. Recently, one of the federal universities successfully held examinations through Skype, wherein students located in other parts of the country were asked to set the camera on their table where they were supposed to write on the answer sheet. The question paper was shared through email just two minutes before the actual time for the paper. The students remained online for the whole duration of the examination, i.e. 3 hours. The computer mic was turned on so that no dictation or other such activity is carried out at another end. The answer sheet was required to be returned in a scanned format through email.

The HEC guidelines encourage faculty members to have multiple testing sessions with students so that both faculty members and students may have a full understanding of this new system of teaching and learning. The rules for participation, questions, and suggestions may be shared in the introduction part of the online activity. The OAC being in a supervisory role will help in training and designing the course. OAC is required to make sure that the course and faculty meet the required standards. It must make sure that faculty members have access to relevant software and infrastructure. The whole online system cannot be rolled out without troubleshooting or support mechanisms in place.

The senior faculty members may be assisted by one or two students who are generally known as class representatives or vice class representatives. Their role will be to assist senior professors in conducting online lectures, uploading content on LMS on their behalf, and assisting any other activities required in the course. It is expected that the gradually online system will be mature enough that different misconceptions and fears about course delivery and evaluation will be in place. The openness in learning new tools and techniques is a prerequisite for this.

HEC has also played its role at the national level, and the National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE) is given the task of identifying and certifying faculty training programs for online teaching. Developing training for the evaluation of the course is also their responsibility. The deadline for faculty members to get required training in online teaching is May 15, 2020. The major public sector universities have responded responsibly, and most of these are with LMS in place. They have also provided training to the faculty members for the new mode of learning. It is hoped that after summer vacation, the Universities will be able to roll out the online mode of education with desired expectations.

Apart from developing academic activities, the faculty members have to interact with students regularly to understand their situation in the current crisis. The motivating and encouraging behavior of faculty members will help the students to remain positive in their behavior and may recover from stress, which most of them are facing these days. There is no harm in having one virtual session in a week on how they are spending their time during this pandemic. The faculty members should make sure that students do not fear a loss in academic grades, loss of degree- especially of female students and any other fears they may have. Like doctors are playing their role in the hospital, the faculty members have to safeguard our generation’s ideological boundaries by involving them in academic as well as other online activities.

The author is Dy. Director at Higher Education Commission, Islamabad. He can be reached at muneermirjat@gmail.com