The Continuing Education and Development Center at University of Basrah concluded today the activities of its first virtual conference entitled (Development and education is a strength for the individual and the society in the time of digital transformation), which was held in cooperation with (Arid) platform, which includes a group of Arabic-speaking academics in Malaysian universities and with the support of the College of Administration and Economics
About the atmosphere of the conference sessions, the Director of the Center, Dr. Nidaa Muhammad Al-Yasiri, said, "For two successive days, and with the participation of about (35) researchers from various Iraqi and Malaysian universities, we have called for an analysis of the mechanisms and work programs of the continuing education centers in all Iraqi universities and the ways to deal with the transformations of digital life since the outbreak of the first wave of the Corona pandemic early last year in order to identify the weaknesses and strengths in the performance of these centers and compare them with their foreign counterparts, especially in Malaysia, the exclusive partner of our conference"
As for the most prominent results of the researches presented at the conference, the head of the Scientific Committee, Dr. Saeed Jassim Al-Asadi, said, "Researchers in the organizational and assessment sides in the continuing education centers in all Iraqi universities have unanimously agreed on the need to transform the centers into directorates under which all other training places in the university fall, and to make them adopt a mission, vision, and work program documented with evidence showing the mechanisms to achieve their goals, responsibilities and organizational structure, as well as the need to reduce administrative routine and give managers more power to keep pace with the training of various segments of society and provide a physical environment rich with all training requirements"
Al-Asadi added that on the legislative side, the researchers stressed the need to fill the legislative deficiency in the work of the centers by supporting them with legal legislation that clarifies how to manage their incomes and their contract with trainers and activate Article (1010) of the edited Law No. (40) for the year (1988), which states that the university, college, scientific research center and higher institutions related to the university should have abstract personality, financial and administrative independence, and the necessary legal capacity to achieve its goals and manage its affairs by an advisory board, provided that these legislations clarify the technical and administrative attachment of the continuing education units in all university faculties with the main center
For their part, the attendees expressed optimism regarding the results and the size of the government response to their recommendations after they were sent to the concerned authorities, stressing the continuation of developing the skills of graduates and raising the time limit for their training to (90) hours for graduates of non-educational colleges and (45) hours for graduates of educational colleges and the same is true for the development of in-service instructors graduated from non-educational colleges
