‘Teach yourself’ initiative comes to aid of university students amid curfew

AMMAN — HRH Prince Hassan, chairman of the Higher Council for Science and Technology (HCST), on Sunday directed the council to launch the “Teach yourself” initiative, designed to enable university students in Jordan to continue learning through the Internet while staying at home, to “salvage what remains of the current semester”.

This initiative comes as a collaborative effort of the HCST, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Commission for Higher Education Institutions and major Jordanian universities, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The project aims to respond to the challenges imposed by the breakout of the novel coronavirus and will be used as a guide for a proper design of an open higher education digital learning platform which is administered by the Higher Education Ministry, read a statement from the initiative.

The platform will integrate all university portals and will complement any missing parts to have a platform for all university students in Jordan, the statement said.

The move reflects Prince Hassan's keenness on enhancing the HCST’s role in supporting science and technology, as well as the attention he attaches to the necessity of providing services to university students, facilitating their access to information and enhancing the notion of distance learning, Petra said.

The programme also prepares the stage for institutionalising digital learning within a “blended” system of distant-digital learning mixed with in-class learning for future semesters, the statement said.

The “Teach yourself” programme solves an imminent problem and simultaneously prepares for further logistical and legal actions to make it part of the higher education system in Jordan, read the statement.

The main idea of the programme is to utilise the already existing digital learning materials by many of the universities in addition to using open-source materials available on the Internet, the statement said.

Some Jordanian universities have already started using this programme for the current semester for their students, the initiative’s statement said, pointing to the need for opening up these university systems to all students for all universities.