Keynote presentation : Challenges, impacts and crisis management on higher education and quality assurance under and after COVID-19 crisis: can Taiwan case be implicated?
Since COVID-19 inevitably caused an educational crisis worldwide, most governments have temporarily closed educational institutions in order to contain the spread of the pandemic. The impacts on higher education include thousands of academic staff and students being suddenly forced to stay at home and learn online, the suspension of international mobility and travel, postponement of institutional entry examinations, and cut or cancelled government funding. These changes affect how universities are measured and student learning outcomes are assessed, in national and international contexts. In addition, a UNESCO survey report shows that most universities have administered examinations remotely via internal or institutional platforms or even postponed the whole academic year. At the same time, they have to apply alternative ways, with adapted methodologies, to assess student learning outcomes.
Higher education in Asia and its quality assurance mechanisms have been seriously threatened by virus pandemic in 2020. Most Asian institutions, guided by national authorities, have closed campuses, postponed examination, cancelled all large gatherings such as graduation and enrolment ceremonies, suspended cross-border research projects temporarily, enforced quarantine policy on all incoming international students, etc. Taiwan is one of the places whose campuses remained open normally after the outbreak of COVID-19, but all Taiwan’s universities took actions to ensure campus safety and quality of learning, in alignment with the Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC) measures and Ministry of Education (MOE) policy. Therefore, the presentation will focus on how government policies and crisis management impact quality assurance activities and accreditation services in higher education globally as well as in Taiwan
