International Conference - Building New Bridges Together

Thematic Track 3: Online Education for a Sustainable Future: Quality and Ethical Standards in Higher Education

One of the most important purposes of education is to secure the path of learning, knowledge and skills to enable a sustainable future for individuals and for society. The same is valid for online education. The achievement of this goal to prepare the next generation of professionals and leaders for their roles in academia and society requires innovative teaching that takes into account the need for a rapprochement between regional and global communities of knowledge.

Online education bears the potential for bridging the gaps of a research-based exchange between these communities for developing sustainable models of coexistence across the globe. However, while the new situations of learning with online education can create and increase awareness of sustainability as a paradigm for actively engaging to meet the global challenges endangering our common future, they cannot be sustainable themselves at the expense of quality standards and values. These standards can be strongly supported if online learning insists on the intrinsic relationship between quality and ethics, on matters of form and on methods of learning in relationship with the expected outcome and attitudes of the learners in the world.

Online learning has to promote transparency and contribute to equity in access to higher education. Quality and future-oriented online learning can also assist in facilitating professional development and adaptability in the labour market. 

The conversations during this thematic track will deepen the understanding on how ethics and quality standards contribute to and accompany the transition from offline to online learning, on how blended learning can complement classical forms of learning and on how the aim of equipping students, teachers and institutions for a sustainable future can serve as framework for all these different provisions for learning in the 21st century.

Speakers and topics for Thematic Track 3: Online Education for a Sustainable Future: Quality and Ethical Standards in Higher Education 

MODERATOR Deivit Montealegre Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto Colombia/Canada	ETHICS IN HIGHER EDUCATION - AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE  Jesse Mugambi University of Nairobi Kenya	COMMUNITY-BASED HIGHER EDEUCATION ON SUSTAINABILITY AS EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIETAL QUALITY – AN EXPERIENCE FROM THE MALUKU ISLANDS Jenne Jessica R. Pieter The Protestant Church In The Moluccas Indonesia	QUALITY AND ETHICAL STANDARDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN EGYPT Hany Youssef Hassan University of Sadat City Egypt	TOWARDS A CULTURE OF HLISTIC AND INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES THROUGH ELECTRONIC NEGOTIATIONS IN HIGHER EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND PEACE Benoît Girardin Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations Switzerland

Thematic Track 4: Ethics and Skills for a Responsible Global Citizenship

One of the main purposes of promoting ethics in higher education is the development of responsible global citizens, workers and leaders across all sectors of society. The current pandemic crisis has brought to the surface, more than ever before, the close relationship that exists between the values, skills and competences that prepare learners for embracing their responsibility as global citizens with the engagement to determine the future by addressing the pressing global challenges together with others and the international debate and initiatives around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Quality Education reposes on the value of equal access to and participation in education. The emphasis on education as a key and life-changing factor gains in the face of the global pandemic even more significance. Our individual lives, our educational paths and our professional vocations are intimately tied up with the learning chances and educational opportunities of others in the world.  Ethics enables us to see and interpret these connections, to build competences on the insights of sharing this planet with others and in assuming responsibilities to remove and change conditions that result in exclusion from education. 

The intensive exchange of knowledge and values, the internationalization resulting therefrom and the consciousness of a shared responsibility in inhabiting the world with others, will change our view on what education in this era is all about. The pandemic has sharpened awareness of the need for an ethos of global citizenship.

Cooperation among higher education institutions, public and private partnerships, can both challenge and strengthen the higher education sector, bringing it to a new level of quality with values-driven standards and ultimately lead to the formation of responsible global citizens. The conversations during this thematic track aim at gaining new insights on developments in this direction in various contexts.

Speakers and topics for Thematic Track 4: Ethics and Skills for a Responsible Global Citizenship

MODERATOR Herbert Makinda Globethics.net East Africa / Catholic University of Eastern Africa Kenya	RE-IMAGINING SOLIDARITY: THE ETHICAL DUTY OF GLOBAL CITIZENS IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 Irene Ludji Claremont Graduate University in California Indonesia	ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN A GLOBALLY DYNAMIC WORLD Ghadially Zoher Christ University Bangalore India	YOUTH FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. HOW TO DEVELOP IT? Melita Marceta Zagreb Stock Exchange Academy Croatia	RATIONALE OF ETHICS FOR GLOBAL CITIZENS Josfin Raj New Life Biblical Seminary, Cheruvakkal, India