Showed the successful implementation of sustainability of education During COVID-19

01,Apr 2021

Royal University for Women (RUW) participated in a virtual open meeting held by the General Secretariat of the Higher Education Council headed by Dr Abdulghani Al-Shuwaikh, Secretary-General of the Council, along with the presidents of private higher education institutions in the Kingdom of Bahrain. During the meeting, the university expressed its gratitude for the support of the Higher Education Council led by His Excellency Dr Majid bin Ali Al-Nuaimi, Minister of Education, and appreciated the efforts made by the Council’s General Secretariat during the last period in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr Mona Suri, Acting President of the Royal University for Women, highlighted the university's efforts in sustaining higher education in light of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic having a successful experience in the implementation and maintaining the permanence of the educational process. These efforts included the measures taken by the university for the return of students and the institution’s procedures for attending students of practical and applied programmes, in addition to the important efforts made by the Royal University for Women in the most important efforts in the field of research, scientific publishing, and the research plan in light of the pandemic.

Dr Suri has also presented the university’s plan for post-pandemic and its implementation requirements in preparation for returning to university life in its usual nature, which included provision of Student Support Portal, development of the online payment gateway and Learning resources being fully adapted to online teaching through the availability of Moodle as a learning management system, BigBlueButton as the platform for synchronous teaching and recording all of the classes for students to be available for students to at a later stage, providing remote access to the library, and providing classrooms with smart projectors.

As for the blended mode - face to face teaching, Dr Suri indicated that the university has put all the health and safety arrangements in place with ensuring the maximum capacity of each classroom in line with Social distancing in place and assured the availability of academic and technical support.

At the end of the presentation, Dr Suri presented the university's recommendations regarding the educational process after the pandemic, which included adding value for International students who wish to study online in Bahrain and for the universities to be allowed to offer online degrees with clear guidelines of content, delivery and evaluation as well as making free and open-source technologies available to teachers and students.