Academic Centre
In October of this year, the project team from the University of Latvia, represented by prof. Linda Daniel and Astra Rudolph went to India, where a meeting of all 11 partners was held at the Vellore Institute of Technology Trust-Vit University in the framework of the project DIVERSASIA: Embracing diversity in ASIA through the adoption of Inclusive Open Practices. Vellore Institute of Technology is a private research deemed university, located in Katpadi in Vellore, India where in total, more than 35,000 students study, and more than 1,762 academics work. It persistently seeks and adopts innovative methods to improve the quality of higher education on a consistent basis. VIT Group of Institutions offer 66 Undergraduate, 58 Postgraduate, 15 Integrated Programmes, 2 Research programmes and 2 M.Tech Industrial Programmes.The Vellore Institute of Technology is one of the four cooperation partners in Asia, and the project's visit to this institute was the first of four times when the partners go to Asia for the exchange of experience.
The meeting of project partners took place from October 17-21. The first two days were dedicated to evaluating the progress of the DIversasia project, analyzing the achieved results and planning the next project activities. After the first phase of the project - in which research was conduct on the current situation of inclusive education in Asian universities. Conclusions were drawn and examples of good practices were collected, based on which the project team will continue work on the preparation of practical guidelines so that the partners of the Asian project can introduce and promote the development of inclusive education in India and in higher education institutions of Bangladesh.
From October 18-19, representatives of the University of Latvia project participated in the Vellore Technical Institute conference Role of Assistive Technologies to enhance the standards in Higher Education for Disabled Learners about opportunities to promote inclusive education using the opportunities provided by technology. In total 16 of representatives from both Europe and Asia spoke at the conference in two days.
Professor Linda Daniela spoke on both days of the conference, on one of them presenting the study DiversAsia: findings from Staff and Student surveys in the Indian context, conducted by the University of Latvia, on the experience and competence of employees of Indian higher education institutions in implementing inclusive education. While on the second day he gave a speech Principles for creating accessible online courses, giving practical recommendations, which standards and recommendations should be taken into account when creating various digital learning platforms for online learning, in order to comply with the standards of inclusive education.
Other participants of the conference spoke on the topics of technology and the creation of various digital learning tools, as well as shared both practical recommendations and their experiences in implementing and providing inclusive education in higher education institutions. It should be noted that two participants who obtained higher education as special needs students shared their experience at the conference, thus providing their perspective and experience on the inclusive study process in Indian educational institutions.
The University of Latvia appreciates this project visit and especially thanks the Vellore Institute of Technology team for the kind and wonderful welcome in India. During this visit, the dean of the faculty also met with the dean of the School of Information Technology and Engineering Dr. Sumathy S, and the possibility of cooperating with this institute in other projects as well as thinking about student exchange programs as part of cooperation was discussed.
The next project meeting will take place in Bangladesh, when project partners will make a similar visit to Jahangirnagar University.
Partners involved in the project:
The project involves 11 partners from different European and Asian countries - India, Bangladesh, England, Bulgaria, Belgium, Turkey, Latvia.
The University of Latvia is represented in the project by: Prof. Linda Daniela (project manager), Art Rūdolfa (project researcher), Astra Rūdolfa (assistant project manager).
Project Nr.: 618615-EPP-1-2020-UK-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP.
Project term: from January 15, 2021 to January 14, 2024.
The total amount of funding allocated to the project is EUR 1 00 00 00,00.
