On January 23-24, 2014 the Meeting of UNESCO Chairs on higher education, ICT in education and teachers took place in the UNESCO HQ, Paris. The main goal of this event organized by Education Sector was to seekeffective ways to engage UNESCO Chairs and UNITWIN Networks on how they can contribute more actively towards UNESCO achieving its expected programmatic results in the areas of higher education, ICT in education and teachers. It is supposed that this collaboration will build on UNESCO’s role as an international intellectual resource in higher education, teacher training and professional development, and ICT in education, while enhancing the work of each individual Chair and Network.
IITE along with 5 members of its Network of UNESCO Chairs on ICT in Education and Innovative pedagogies took part at the Meeting, presented the main activities, results and plans as well as discussed the topical issues of higher education, ICT in education and teachers in the context of UNESCO Chairs cooperation. Today IITE Network consists of 39 UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs and Universities from 18 member-states. Plan – 50 active members from 25 countries up to the end of 2015. The IITE Network was represented by: Prof. Elena Shoikova, UNESCO Chair on ICTs in Library Studies, Education and Cultural Heritage, State University of Library Studies and IT (Sofia, Bulgaria); Prof. Charles Hopkins, Chairholder of UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Teacher Education Towards Sustainability, York University (Toronto ,Canada); Prof. Tapio Varis, Chairholder, UNESCO Chair in Global e-Learning With Applications to Multiple Domains, University of Tampere (Finland), Prof. Vasilios Makrakis, Chairholder of UNESCO Chair on ICT in Education for Sustainable Development, University of Crete (Gallos, Greece); Ms. Oksana Mukhina, Vice-Chairholder and Prof. Sergey Bezzateev of UNESCO Chair in Distance Education in Engineering, St Petersburg State university of Aerospace Instrumentaton (Russian Federation), prof. Alexander Khoroshilov, UNESCO IITE National Programme Officer.
The participants of the Meeting highly appreciated initiatives and experience of UNESCO IITE on cooperation with UNESCO Chairs in the field of ICT in education and innovative pedagogy including IITE conferences, publications, International Master Programme and training courses. Several UNESCO Chairs including the ones from Africa region expressed their interest to join IITE Network of UNESCO Chairs and took part in its upcoming Annual Conference in June, 2014 (St. Petersburg). Beside the number of direct contacts with participants of the Meeting was established during the event which followed by proposals for cooperation including joint publications, research and training courses.