The current pandemic has compelled many national and multinational organizations to adopt a digital or virtual office environment, and they perform relevant activities from home. It is possible for them because they have automated or digitized office procedures, financial management, human resource management, and other processes well in time. Now they are using digital communication services for connecting with individual clients as well as with organizations.
Digitization or automation in public sector institutions remained a challenging task due to various reasons, which included the cost of technology, lack of awareness, and resistance to adopt this new way of working as digitization will stop local customized approaches in the workflow, corruption, disclosures in terms of file movement, and communicating remarks of authorities from one office to other. The stakeholders also used to exercise influence on financial and other approvals etc. in the manual filing system. One of the reasons is also the fact that most of the IT professionals belong to younger age; therefore, sometimes senior employees had difficulty in communicating with these young professionals. On the other side, sometimes, confidentiality, seriousness, and professionalism do lack in these young IT professionals.
Public sector organizations, including Universities, remained in financial crisis in our part of the world as most of the time, like other developing countries, and due to different challenges, we remain reluctant to digitize our processes. The adaptation of technology in public service institutions remained a matter of debate for decades, but very few have integrated and owned it. Although, technology adoption is successful in some public sector organizations like NADRA, Passport office, and processes initiated by Punjab IT Board a few years ago. The current situation is again pushing us to embrace the 21st-century skills for better, transparent, and efficient working.
The use of technology in teaching and research is more critical as knowledge being produced around the world is of enormous level, and it can only be absorbed by the students if it is presented using technology. The availability of different Learning Management System (LMS) has complemented the way our traditional libraries are accessed, and classes are conducted. The recent assessment carried out by the Higher Education Commission shows that only 40 public sector Universities were using LMS, whereas rest were without it.
The COVID-19 guidelines released by the HEC also show that 30% of complaints of the students are about connectivity, which is more evident in far-flung areas where the 3G network is not available. It all happened as most of the institutions went directly to the synchronous mode, which requires high bandwidth. The Universities were required to assess accessibility and affordability before issuing directives for classes through synchronous mode. In this the HEC guidelines were very much clear that universities that have enough resources and arrangements may offer online courses. Others were requested to use LMS provided by the Virtual University or roll out free LMS tools with the help of the Technical Support Committee established for this purpose.
The COVID-19 guidelines released by the HEC also show that 30% of complaints of the students are about connectivity, which is more evident in far-flung areas where the 3G network is not available
The concerns of faculty members were also there for visiting campuses for especially conducting online classes. On the other hand, students were not comfortable with the new mode of learning. The evaluation method was also not defined adequately by the universities, which may be weightage to the attendance, assignments, quizzes, participation during the synchronous and asynchronous mode of teaching. Students also complained that universities are charging full tuition fees for face to face or traditional learning, whereas they are taught virtually; therefore, the tuition fee may be subsided to bear the connectivity charges.
The HEC has responded to these concerns raised by the stakeholders. It has constituted the Technical Support Committee, comprising serving vice-chancellors and other eminent educationists. The committee is tasked with developing a connectivity map, and National Knowledge Bank included online content. The National Academy of Higher Education of the HEC will conduct the training for faculty members on how to design and implement the online course. The Quality Assurance Agency of the HEC is directed for assisting universities for meeting quality parameters for the satisfaction of students.
All such concerns could have been averted if HEC’s initiatives introduced after its establishment was in place. One of them is the Pakistan Education Research Network (PERN), which has many digital services and high internet connectivity. The facilities were offered to both the public sector as well as private sector institutions. The services included a video conference program and other digital services for teaching and research. The main objective was to provide high-speed internet for connecting academia through video conferences and digital tools. The digital library comprising millions of research documents were also offered. Most of the Universities benefited from these services and utilized the same for improving the standard of the qualifications produced and developed research output produced by them.
Currently, more than 200 universities are the members of the PERN and utilizing these services. The universities are required to make policies for online mode by specifying the roles and responsibilities of every stakeholder. The administrative and academic teams should work together for better student experience. The faculty members must encourage and engage students these days as the internet is full of diverting content, which may detract our potential leaders.
The writer is Deputy Director, Higher Education Commission, H-9, Islamabad