The word AMED is an acronym for “Advancing higher Education in Maldives through E-learning Development”.
The project is funded by Erasmus+ Programme and involves four partners: Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI) and Croatian Academic, Research Network (CARNET) from Croatia, The Open University of Catalonia (UOC) from Spain, and The Maldives National University (MNU). AMED is coordinated by the FOI under the leadership of Associate Professor Igor Balaban, PhD.
Centre for Educational Technology and Excellence (CETE), MNU, is coordinating the project from Maldives. Though the direct beneficiary of the project is MNU, it is expected that in the long run the whole of Maldives will gain the benefit through the project.
As a member of the CETE team, I am fully committed to work in the project to the best of my ability. Since technology enabled learning and online education is something I love, committing to the project is based on my personal interest than an employment obligation.
The project requires day-to-day collaboration with members of CETE, communicating with consortium partners, planning piloting and dissemination of project outputs along with developing the mindset of the people in relation to e-learning. Apart from that, I am responsible for dealing with any web-based development and media creation needed for the project.
The mission of the project is to support the modernization, accessibility and internationalization of higher education in Maldives, by improving the level of competencies and skills of university teachers through developing new and innovative education programmes in the field of e-learning.
As per the aim of the project, it will help transforming the traditional education system of the Maldives to a modern, online and technology-enabled system. Hence, it will lead to an increase in the accessibility for both students who can attend and who are unable to attend the physical campuses of the university for any reason.
Once it goes online, it will not be limited to the Maldivians. It will be available to the whole world as online education is available for anyone with an internet connection. It can make any institute international by increasing access to educational curriculum outside of a traditional classroom. Therefore, Maldives education will go international inshaAllah.
This project also aims to equip lecturers of the university with the knowledge, skills and competencies in e-learning, and train them to become innovative in the field of teaching online. Thus, when the project is completed, lecturers of MNU will be professionally developed with new competencies aligned to the required needs for e-learning design and delivery.
The project began in January 2019 and is expected to be completed by January 2022.
Meeting the deadlines according to the plan was tough yet it was going smooth until Covid-19 became a pandemic. Even with the stress during this time, staying away from office and being locked down at home, the members are working hard on the project to meet the deadlines.
With the completion of the project, MNU will have an established e-learning system with trained staff as well as a well-equipped e-learning studio and e-facilitated classrooms in all five campuses. This will enable MNU to continue and deliver online education across the whole nation and make it possible for MNU to deliver its courses to at the international level inshaAllah.