With the aim to understand how international officers of other universities deal with the effects of COVID-19 on mobility programmes and physical activities, an online international forum titled “COVID-19: Current and Future Trends of International Collaboration” was organised by UTAR Division of Community and International Networking (DCInterNet) on 7 July 2020 via Zoom.

The forum saw the participation of 81 people including guest speakers from five different universities, sharing their expertise on university policies and strategies while facing the impact of COVID-19 outbreak. The attendees were also invited to discuss the current and future trends of international collaboration between universities from different economies.

The guest speakers from the five universities were Guangxi Normal University (China) International Office Director Lee Dongmei (李冬梅); Lanzhou Jiaotong University (China) International Office Deputy Director Yao Bin (姚斌); Minghsin University of Science and Technology (Taiwan) Office of International and Cross-Strait Affairs Deputy Director Liang Ruo-Hui (梁若晖); Yuan Ze University (Taiwan) Global Affair Office Deputy Director Prof Lin Chih-Yang (林智杨教授) and UTAR DCInterNet Director Assoc Prof Dr Lai Soon Onn (赖顺安博士).

The other participated universities were Wenzhou University, Hengyang Normal University, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Zhejiang International Studies University, ShiJiaZhuang Posts & Telecommunications Technical College, Guangxi Higher Sports School, National Ilan University, Dezhou University, Heze University, Ningbo University, Guangxi University of Foreign Languages, Henan Polytechnic University, Wannan Medical University, The College of Humanities & Sciences of Guizhou Minzu University, HungKuang University of Science and Technology, Xianyang Normal University, Tamkang University, Chung Yuan Christian University, Yiwu Industrial & Commercial College, Shu-Te University, Oriental Institute of Technology, National Penghu University of Science & Technology, Providence University, and Xiangsihu College of Guangxi University for Nationalities.

Invited to grace the opening ceremony was UTAR Vice President for Internationalisation and Academic Development Ir Prof Dr Yow Ho Kwang.

In his opening speech, Prof Yow expressed his thanks to all the attendees and said, “While everyone is dealing with the COVID-19 crisis in real time, this could also serve as a reminder that the internet could be a new trend of communication. Furthermore, the COVID-19 crisis could bring a long-term impact on higher learning institutions from various aspects such as teaching, school activities and other physical activities. Due to the border control on international travel, the overseas exchange programmes, overseas visiting and other international events on campus had to be suspended for some time. In view of this, today’s forum aimed to provide a platform to discuss and share experiences faced and coped by each university. At the same time, we could also take the opportunity to discuss the possible new international collaboration models and operating modes that can be carried out together during post-COVID-19.”

The forum was then continued with a sharing session by the invited speakers. They introduced and shared about the current condition of their universities.

Despite the lockdown, some universities managed to organise collaborative activities with other foreign universities. The activities include online classes and webinars conducted by overseas lecturers, virtual study tours to foreign countries, virtual student exchange programmes as well as virtual internships. The speakers also provided details on how they exchanged international cooperation with foreign countries during the epidemic.

The speakers shared that all visiting and overseas exchange programmes were suspended due to the epidemics. “The pandemic impacted the project schedule severely as most of the cooperation projects and school events that were under negotiation had to be postponed due to the lockdown,” said Yao Bin. He then added, “For overseas staff and students, we kept a close eye on their health status. We also arranged counsellors to have counselling sessions with them to strengthen their mental health.”

During the forum, Lee Dongmei said that this was a critical time for the university to provide training courses to the lecturers. “Now is a good time to train our lecturers. What cannot be done before can be improved during this lockdown period. The University should offer more online training programmes for lecturers so that they know how to make good use of the computer software and online learning platform for their future teaching,” said Lee.

Lee also added, “Our University (Guangxi Normal University) now offers a weekly training programme for lecturers to obtain different skills and knowledge such as technical knowledge about computers, advance skills in using apps and software, as well as professional courses like law, economics, accounting and finance.”

When speaking about the impact of COVID-19 outbreak from the economic perspective, Liang Ruo-Hui said, “The pandemic is causing a lot of damage to the income of many universities, especially for those private universities in Taiwan that rely on the intake of international students.”

He then explained, “International students are the biggest source of income for MingHsin University in Taiwan. Just imagine how bad the COVID-19 outbreak would have affected us.”

According to Dr Lai, UTAR is very keen to foster collaboration with overseas universities. He said, “In order to make it easier for everyone to view the activities that are co-organised by UTAR and other universities, a column stating ‘Collaboration News’ was added at the top bar of the dcinternet.utar.edu.my webpage.”