Higher Education Activation Lab-HEAL Series Launched at UKZN

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The Discipline of Information Systems and Technology at the UKZN School of Management, Information Technology, and Governance (SMIG) collaborated with the institution of the Higher Education Commission, Mauritius on Tuesday, 24 January 2023, hosting its first Higher Education Activation Lab (HEAL) series webinar which coincided with International Day of Education.

UKZN Academic Leader for Information Systems and Technology (IS&T), Dr Upasana Singh, unpacked the rationale for the HEAL initiative, saying, ‘The focus of the Higher Education Activation Lab is to explore where we are and, importantly, what we should now be doing to step forward. The focus is on activating change - shifting from discourse to doing, from idea to implementation. As such, the fundamental question we seek to answer is “now what?”

Hence, the inaugural webinar was aptly themed: University 4.0-Now What?; attracting leading international researchers, students, and academics from a number of Higher Education Institutions with the aim of exploring and sharing ideas on how best Higher Education Institutions can navigate and prepare to align their future with the 4^th Industrial Revolution (4IR) using the technologically advanced approach in teaching, the “University 4.0”.

The webinar was facilitated by Professor Craig Blewett from UKZN’s IS&T. The panel comprised of Professor Dick Ng’ambi, Educational Technology programmes Head at the University of Cape Town’s School of Education; Professor Romeela Mohee, Commissioner of the Higher Education Commission; and Professor Jo-Ansie van Wyk, International Studies Lecturer at Unisa, who discussed how the future of Higher Education has moved at an incredible pace from prognostications to predictions to practice.

Looking deeper into the future of Higher Education, Mohee explained why higher learning institutions must adopt micro-credentialing which is seen as a way of recognising students’ knowledge, skills and competencies without requiring these students to complete a full qualification. She said, ‘Experts have proposed less structured education and a wider array of credentials so people can reskill. Learners need constant upskilling in order to be adaptable to the future of work and be useful to society.’

Van Wyk, whose presentation addressed challenges and opportunities presented by technology in order for Higher Education Institutions to align with the curriculum; teaching and assessment 4.0; and the way forward during the 4IR, also highlighted the requirements for this new era of Higher Education. ‘There is a need for us to shift from reality to Edutopia. Appropriate Higher Education teachers and assessment techniques, as well as technological infrastructure which is accessible and adaptable, will be required. We need to meet the demands of university 4.0 with an instant and on-demand education.’

Explaining the Open Educational Resources of indigenous Games in Africa (ERiGA) project, which seeks to document indigenous games in Africa and openly share them (digital, virtual) as an Open Educational Resource (OER), Ng’ambi said this will empower young people to design digital indigenous games and inspire a generation of citizen developers in the 4IR. ‘The project aims to use indigenous games to decolonise the curriculum and implications of university 4.0 and to have active documentation and preservation of these games on open resources for educators to use in order to determine which games will be appropriate to teach computational reasoning,’ he said.

To watch the first session, go to: https://smitg.ukzn.ac.za/webinars/

Upcoming sessions to diarise:
Session 2
Date: Tuesday, 4 April 2023
Theme: University 4.0 - How do we teach and assess?

Session 3
Date: Monday, 17 July 2023
Theme: University 4.0 - What’s the business model?

Session 4
Date: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Theme: University 4.0 - What’s the curriculum?

Words: Samukelisiwe Cele

Photographs: Supplied