University of Georgia Partners with Tunisia on e-Learning Project

 Tunisian professor’s work gains international recognition

By Jeffrey Thomas
Staff Writer

Washington -- Like many developing countries, Tunisa has burgeoning numbers of students. Unlike many developing countries, Tunisia has pioneered an innovative approach to educating its young population. In 2002, the country established the Virtual University of Tunis (VUT) to address the needs of some students through distance-learning while also offering opportunities in higher education to all who qualifiy.

That same year, an engineering professor at the University of Georgia (UGA) created an educational partnership between her university and her home country, Tunisia.

Takoi Hamrita says she founded the partnership in part because she feared losing touch with Tunisia and in part because she feared her chosen field, engineering, might limit what she “could do to make a difference.”

“When you grow up in a developing country, academic achievement is central to your life and you grow up with aspirations to change the world,” she says in an open letter on the partnership’s Web site.

“International work by definition requires going beyond established boundaries,” she says, adding that educators also must challenge the boundaries at their institutions. “As faculty, we have to overcome departmental, discipline, infrastructure, and traditional role boundaries if we are to be effective in our campus internationalization efforts.”

In creating the UGA-Tunisia Educational Partnership, which recently won an Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education, she sought “to let Tunisian national goals and strategic initiatives for higher education, as well as those of UGA, guide Partnership goals, and I let these act as magnets to attract human and financial resources, not the other way around.” (See “Internationalizing U.S. Campuses Benefits Students.”)

The award was presented by the Institute of International Education (IIE) at a ceremony March 13 at the United Nations.

The partnership aims to “assist Tunisia with higher education reform in a sustainable and holistic way,” Hamrita said in an e-mail interview with America.gov. It is building a sustainable e-learning environment to increase access to education, implementing international standards and promoting civic engagement among elementary, secondary and university students and faculty, she said.

There are several components to the partnership, which was funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Middle East Partnership Initiative, which President Bush launched in December 2002 to support economic, political and educational reform efforts, and to increase opportunities for all people in the region, especially women and children. (See “The Middle East Partnership Initiative Alumni Network.”)

The largest of the UGA-Tunisia Partnership programs focuses on e-learning in support of the Virtual University of Tunis, particularly teacher training and online course development.

In March 2006, a delegation of 20 Tunisian professors spent two weeks at UGA taking part in an advanced workshop on e-learning. The workshop covered such topics as designing e-learning courses, supporting distance learners, best practices for teaching and learning online and using two-way audio in a virtual classroom.

Hamrita said she is “particularly pleased with the outcomes of our capacity building efforts in e-learning.” The more than 80 Tunisian faculty members who have participated in partnership e-learning training workshops have developed 52 online courses and continue to train their peers in Tunisia. Two alumni, for example, developed degree programs for special needs students, one in accounting, the other in information and communication technology.

Another component of the partnership has involved UGA faculty working closely with a national committee appointed by the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education to establish effective evaluation mechanisms.

Through workshops and collaborative projects, the partnership also seeks to reinforce civil society through university public service and outreach. In 2006, for example, UGA students and faculty from 11 departments participated in a two-week service-learning course and civic engagement project in Tunisia with University of Sousse students. The participants held discussions on social and economic issues -- from juvenile delinquency to the environment -- and used art as a vehicle for communication and self-expression.

UGA has held several events to promote international understanding, including lectures on U.S.-Arab relations by the Tunisian ambassador to the United States. It also sought to create a voluntary, flexible network that benefits both UGA and Tunisia. UGA project participants receive intensive Arabic language training and Tunisian participants receive training in English. In addition, UGA has created a service learning course to enable UGA students to contribute to the projects. Service-learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities.

Tunisian education leaders particularly praise the fact that the partnership supports its own reform efforts, Hamrita said. “We're not handing down a formula, as many developed-developing country collaborations do. We've focused on empowering faculty and cultivating local leadership.”

UGA hopes within the next year to extend the program to Morocco and Egypt, as well as to other U.S. institutions, Hamrita said.

“Effective models for building coherent, substantive international programs are rare,” said UGA Provost Arnett C. Mace, Jr., when the Heiskell Award was announced earlier this year. “The efforts of Dr. Takoi Hamrita on behalf of the UGA-Tunisia Partnership have established a far-reaching, new paradigm for university international collaboration and globalization based on a complex systems approach.”

More information is available on the Web site of the UGA-Tunisia Educational Partnership.

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