Taylor’s American Degree Transfer Program and U.S. Embassy Kuala Lumpur recently hosted an International Webinar aptly titled: Higher Education during the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Global Perspective of the Challenges and Best Practices. The webinar, held on the 4th of September 2021 was led by 8 Alumni of the U.S State Department from Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Finland, Mozambique, Brazil, India, and Greece. The opening message was presented by Mr. Akash Suri from the U.S. Embassy, KL.
The presenters, comprising of varying specialists from Teacher Education, Law, Language, History, Anthropology, Sociology to Liberal Education; provided an update on the pandemic situation in their respective countries. They then went on to talk about the challenges and the disruptions they faced when their educational institutions were forced to revert to online, off-line and hybrid modes of teaching and learning. Their discussions were on best practices implemented to reduce the disruption and insights on the evolving future of higher educational trends.
The session began with opening remarks from Mr. Akash R, Suri, Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer, United States Embassy Kuala Lumpur. Ms. Prema, Head of Department of School of Liberal Arts and Sciences represented Malaysia to provide the current COVID situation in Malaysia and best practices being implemented in Taylor’s University. Emeritus Prof. Philip Hosay, (International Education) New York University, USA gave the closing remarks, and it was noted that the webinar was successful in achieving its objectives which were to bring together the global academic community on a single platform to understand the challenges of teaching and learning from a global perspective, to provide alternative methods to ensure continuity in teaching and learning. 902 participants from 26 countries across the globe registered for the webinar. The participants were kept engaged throughout the session as well as through their ‘conversation’ via the chatbox.
