The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will cause Pakistan’s education sector $2 billion losses, a new study that analyzed the effects of the disease on the country’s economy has revealed.
Tag: online education
The post-COVID-19-crisis Pakistan will be able to better equip itself for the 4th industrial revolution, however, we need to remember that how the world will look like if there is a digital virus and this millennium bug would erase all data.
This was stated by experts at an online consultation titled ‘Higher Education and Digital Inclusiveness in Times of COVID-19’ organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad.
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PM To Launch Teleschool Today
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Teleschool to help locked-down students minimize loss of learning amid coronavirus pandemic
Prime Minister Imran Khan will inaugurate the first ever teleschool in the country that has been developed to impart education to students in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
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GCU conducts its first online PhD viva
In wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, the Government College University (GCU) Lahore has arranged its first online viva of a PhD candidate of Political Science, Sadia Rafiq, who completed her research on the topic related to Sunni minorities in Iran.
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PU Decides Policy For Online Classes
Punjab University has finalized a policy regarding online classes of the students in the prevailing situation. In this regard, an online meeting of deans and heads of departments was presided over by PU Vice Chancellor Prof Niaz Ahmad here on Thursday.
The universities should start blending and online teaching-learning ensuring compliance with the minimum requirements using Learning Management System (LMS) available at campuses and online platforms such as Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Class etc.
The Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) has constituted a nine-member committee to enable higher education institutions (HEIs) to continue teaching lessons online.
This comes in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic which forced the Government of Punjab to announce the closure of schools till May 31st. The closures have been categorized as early summer holidays this year in lieu of the usual April / May -August / September window.
The committee is comprised of Prof Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar VC University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore, Prof Dr Muhammad Ashraf VC University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF), Prof Dr Khalid Masud Gondal VC King Edward Medical University (KEMU) Lahore, Prof Dr Arshad Ahmad VC Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad Akhtar VC Information Technology University (ITU) Lahore, Prof Dr Talat Naseer Pasha VC University of Education (UE) Lahore, Dr Naeem Tariq Rector Virtual University (VU) of Pakistan, and Prof Dr Rukhsana David Principal Kinnaird College for Women (KCW) Lahore.
Headed by Chairperson PHEC Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid, the goal of the committee is to set out guidelines to ensure an efficient transition to online learning.
The committee will work in tandem with higher education institutions to facilitate smart classrooms and to meet the IT needs of these institutions in order to manage as seamless a transition as possible.
Related: PHEC To Expand Community Colleges In 27 Colleges in Punjab
6 Free Online Education Platforms
They say nothing in life is free. While that might not be true in many cases, it certainly is true in one; education. Or is it? While there is no real way of avoiding the high costs associated with a quality educational degree in the present day and age, there are some free-of-cost options that let one gain knowledge at the click of a button. Here are the top six websites offering free Online Education Platforms for everyone.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is one of the most famous web resource for learning myriad of topics free of cost. It is a noted non-profit organisation set by educator Salman Khan in 2006 with an aim of making education and learning free for users through short video tutorials. Over the years, Khan Academy has included lessons ranging from Mathematics and Science to Economics and Arts and the website now offers practice exercises and material for educators, including parents and teachers. The website has delivered over one billion lessons to date and is used by 40 million students and two million teachers each month. It started the lessons in English initially, but the tutorials are now available in more than 20 languages, including Indonesian, Malay, Czech, Danish, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. The academy has been praised by Bill Gates and funded by Google for some its work.
edX
edX is one of the best websites referred to by students all over the world. Founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012, it is an online learning school that offers massive open online course (MOOC) and high-quality educational content from some of the world’s best universities to students anywhere. It offers courses in various fields, including social sciences, arts & humanities, architecture, engineering & technology, medicine, and economics & finance to name a few. Although not all of the courses are free, but there is a massive number that is. The only downside is that if you really want a certification of your qualification in a certain course, you will have to pay a price. But if it is knowledge that you are after, head to edX right away and start learning.
Coursera
Coursera is an education-focused technology company founded by Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller that offers online courses and is based in Mountain View, CA. Coursera works with universities and other organisations to provide online courses, specialisations, and degrees in a variety of subjects. As of October 2017, Coursera had more than 28 million registered users and more than 2,000 courses. A user-friendly website, Coursera is a treasure-trove of knowledge as it offers a large number of courses on subjects including arts & humanities, business, data science, life sciences, math and logic, personal development, social sciences, and language learning. Courses include recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums. The Coursera website is associated with some of the best universities, such as John Hopkins University, University of Michigan, Stanford University, University of Edinburgh, University of Leeds and many other educational institutions.
Academic Earth
Launched on the premise that every individual deserves access to best education, Academic Earth offers a range of courses from art & design to engineering and technology on its well-designed website. The courses are recorded in some of the best colleges and universities across the world and offer something good for everybody without any cost. The website also offers online degree courses and collaborates with a number of reputed colleges, such as University of Oxford, MIT, Stanford University, and many others. It also offers an array of non-degree courses and diplomas to interested visitors. As the name suggests, the website is curated in a way to educate the entire world with top class courses.
Big Think
Big Think is a Web portal that provides multimedia presentations, interviews, and panel discussions with speakers from various fields. The concept for Big Think, which has been deemed as a YouTube for ideas, was first developed by Victoria Brown (Co-Founder and CEO) and Peter Hopkins (Co-Founder and President). Big Think features articles and tutorials of its more than 2,000 fellows, who have received great fame in their respective fields. It is one of the best websites for students who want to learn about life and the world at large. The website offers content about some of the most immediate aspects of our lives, such as politics and current affairs, relationships, culture and religion, technology and innovation, mind and brain and personal growth. Unlike edX and Academic Earth, the Big think website does not provide degrees and certificates, but it provides specialised and authentic knowledge about various fields of life, which interests curious students and learners.
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a web country of its own with millions of free books, movies, software, websites, and much more. For book readers and inquisitive people, this is one of the best websites where one can access gems of knowledge free of cost and without much ado. Although it does not offer certificates or diplomas, many podcasts and videos can be accessed and devoured without hesitation. The Audio Archive includes music, audiobooks, news broadcasts, old time radio shows and many other audio files. There are over 200,000 free digital recordings in the collection. In addition, the Internet Archive has a massive collection of art images, items from museums, and NASA data.
I hope you like these Online Education Platforms; read more: Six habits to defeat procrastination
For many years now, parts of Arab world have remained under conflict, resulting in a heavy toll on the educational journey of millions of children. Even today, continued conflicts in Syria and Yemen are forcing closure of hundreds schools, leaving thousands of children without access to formal education.
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AIOU Stretches its Online Education Wings
Following an aggressive strategy to strengthen its online education presence, Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) is offering several new online degree courses to Pakistanis stationed abroad. The courses are in addition the university’s existing online PhD and MPhil programmes that follow international best practices.
The university is continuously updating its educational plans for overseas students and vastly improved online study material and examination arrangements for expatriates.