The online virtual working meeting (VWM) of the UNESCO IITE Governing Board was held on 18 February 2016 by the initiative of the Chairperson of the IITE Governing Board Dr. Mansoor Al Awar and UNESCO IITE Officer-in-Charge Prof. Alexander Khoroshilov.
The online VWM of the IIET Governing Board was chaired by Dr. Mansoor Al Awar, the Chancellor of Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University (United Arab Emirates), and attended by the GB members: Mr. Jianzhong Cha (China), Mr. Stoyan Denchev (Bulgaria), Mr. Steven Duggan (USA), Mr. Dae-Joon Hwang (Republic of Korea), Mr. Michael G. Meimaris (Greece), Mr. Gard Titlestad (Norway), Mr. Nikolay Toivonen (Russian Federation), Mr. Tapio Varis (Finland), as well as IITE staff. The other two GB members – Mr. Puntsag Tsaagan (Mongolia) and Mr. Kuzvinetsa Peter Dzvimbo (South Africa) who couldn’t participate due to business circumstances has received all appropriate documents in offline mode.
The Governing Board has approved the report on the activities of the Institute in 2015, discussed IITE Workplan for 2016 and current financial situation of the Institute, considered proposals on publications for 2016-2017. The GB members approved the report on the activities of the Institute in 2015, defined future directions and presented their recommendations and proposals regarding IITE activities in the context of the global education agenda “Education 2030” – to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. During discussions GB members stressed a need for developing a new version of IITE Medium-Term Strategy (MTS) for 2016-2021 that should be aligned with UNESCO Education Strategy 2014-2021, Incheon and Qingdao Declarations, and Framework Action Plan “Education 2030”. GB members have agreed with proposal of the GB Chairman Dr. Mansoor Al Awar to prepare a new updated version of IITE MTS 2016-2021 by the integration of three IITE strategic documents (MTS Strategy, Fundraising Strategy, and Publications and Dissemination Strategy) developed by three appropriate IITE GB Task Forces. In addition, GB members expressed their strong willing to arrange the 16th Session of the IITE GB on the second week of September 2016 back to back with biennium IITE International Conference “IITE-2016” that is supposed to be organized in Saint Petersburg. VWM participants suggested the further use of videoconferencing to support communication between members of the Governing Board and management of IITE in the future that fully corresponds with the recommendations of the external auditors of UNESCO to use online facilities for organization of the work meetings more active.
High-quality online videoconferencing environment was provided by IITE partner – telecommunication company Arkadin in the framework of Partnership Agreement signed in September 2015.