A Open University (UAb) wants to deepen relations with the University of the Algarve (UAlg) and train more and more adults in the Algarve region.
At a time when the legal regulation of distance education is being approved, this public Higher Education Institution (HEI) is about to make a commitment with the Government to train 50 thousand adults, the normally designated "over 23", until 2030.
An ambitious goal, which, as illustrated by Paulo Dias, dean of Universidade Aberta, in an interview with Sul Informação, will have to be a national objective and will motivate collaboration between different institutions.
According to the head of the UAb, the imminent approval of the legal regulation of distance higher education represents "a huge change in the country", in relation to this type of education.
«It means that it has a legal framework, that its existence becomes regulated. We work at the level of quality, which is very important, but above all a collaboration regime is established between the Universidade Aberta and other public HEIs, within a legal framework», explained Paulo Dias.
The regulation, on the other hand, “increases the general population's confidence in this distance learning regime”.
Paulo Dias also highlights the “important” contract that will be established between the Government and the UAb for the training of the adult population, the 50 adults who want to be trained by 2030.
“The country has to develop and the qualification of adults is absolutely necessary for us to reach the European goals. The fastest way to achieve it is to qualify the adult population, calling it back to the education system», framed the rector of the UAb.
Until the 14th of May, registration for the UAb degrees. Applications – as you would expect at this digital university – must be done online.
This will be the first phase. Later, there will be a second phase, “but it is important that people signal their interest right away”.
"People can choose to take all curricular units or choose just a few, formatting the course to their liking", revealed Paulo Dias to Sul Informação.
The possibility of choice, in terms of study intensity, «is very important, as it means that the adult population has an opportunity to return to studying without schedules and without limits, as they study at their own pace, with the greatest flexibility. The virtual classroom is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week».
“An adult who is active at a professional level does not have the same availability as someone who is at university full time. These people must have the freedom to look for the time that suits them best to study, according to what their life is like. At the limit, they can come on the bus and be attending a class (laughs)», said Paulo Dias.
By qualifying, these citizens “will have new opportunities to be more creative and innovative in their jobs or to develop new ways of working”.
Achieving 50 adults, mostly people with jobs and complex family lives, in about a decade, will not be an easy task.
To achieve these numbers, «the Open University will have to work in consortium with other institutions», in what will be «a great challenge for the country and for the universities».
This, in the view of rector Paulo Dias, “can only be seen as an advantage, as our students now have degrees from two, three or four institutions. Basically, they can study at the best universities in the country and beyond, as the consortia can be extended to foreign universities».
«We already have consortia with universities like Coimbra or Algarve. Students in these courses will have a diploma that is simultaneously from the UAb and the University of Coimbra or the Algarve», he said.
In the case of UAlg, it is “a long-term strategic partner” of the UAb and “will continue to be so”. The two HEIs jointly offer a PhD in Media and Digital Art, which accepts 20 students per course and takes three years.
With the regulation that will be approved, the partnership with the University of the Algarve should be deepened.
“We are now going to study and prepare new approaches that go beyond the doctoral course. The same is true for other institutions with which we have already collaborated, such as the University of Coimbra, the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon and the Universidade Nova».
“Our idea is to refound these partnerships, in order to make them wider and their scope for action greater. The new legal regulation not only creates a legal framework for these partnerships, but also encourages institutions to join together to achieve this goal of 50 adults trained by 2030», explained Paulo Dias.
“This is a profound innovation in our education system”, he believes.
In addition to the partnership it has had with UAlg for many years, Universidade Aberta has a physical presence in the Algarve, more precisely in Silves, where a local learning center of this university is located.
“This is not a classroom. It is a place where exams are held, but it also hosts cultural activities to support students in the region where it is installed. We hold meetings, conferences, lectures and everything else we deem necessary, as a way of dynamizing, but also creating some proximity between the students», he explained to Sul Informação the rector of the UAb.
With the predictable deepening of relations with the University of Algarve, the local learning center in Silves should gain a new dynamic. «This center will gain a new expression and will become even stronger, because, in the end, it reflects all the activity we have with the Algarve and which we intend to make even stronger», concluded the rector Paulo Dias.
Comments