As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatu l-lāhi wa barakātuh
A very good afternoon
to you all.
At the end of 3-day
Conference and Workshop on ‘Engaged Learning and ICTD in University
Curriculum’ held in Shah Alam, Selangor, it is indeed my delightful
privilege to address you all. The
Conference which has been organized by Aidcom and Unisel in collaboration with
UN-APCICT and Cornell University of USA has come to an end today. I have been told that the conference ended
with successful deliberations and participation from the delegates more than 20
countries. I have also been informed
that the concept of ‘Engaged Learning’
which was initiated and developed by UN as a result of widespread recognition
of the importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the
everyday lives of the people, had since then resulted in three International
Conferences which were held earlier in Geneva, Tunis and Madrid. I feel happy to know that in Asia for the
first time the State of Selangor has been chosen to hold the Conference / Workshop
as a follow-up activity. I sincerely
thank the organizers for their rightful choice.
The increasing
importance of Information and Communication (ICTs) in everyday lives of people
has been widely recognized. More than
two decades ago, major industrial nations in the world acknowledged that
information and communication technology would be virtually the most potential forces
in shaping the 21st Century.
It was perceived that the impact of ICT would affect the peoples’ way of life, the way they learn
and work. It would also affect the
government when interacting with civil societies. As we know that the UN organized three major
conferences in 2003, 2005 and 2012 in Geneva, Tunis and Madrid respectively underscoring
the role of ICT in promoting social change.
This was also perceived that expected social changes would help to meet
the Millennium Development Goals – MDGs.
It was a vision to connect the world wherein 800,000 villages across the
continents would have digital access by 2015.
Ladies and gentlemen,
With the initiative
of UN, the world has taken concrete steps to establish the Information
Society. But whether we have been
successful in emphasising the importance of bringing disadvantaged and
marginalised people across the “digital divide” – we are not yet sure. We are also not yet confident that we are
able to establish the principle of inclusion:
everyone everywhere should be
able to participate in, and no one should be excluded from the benefits of the
Global Information Society.
This is indeed a
challenge – not only to the government or the society – it is a challenge to
the academic institutions including the universities as well as to the
authorities who oversee the higher education system. It is a challenge because rapid technological
development has today made ICT as an indispensable part of the programme
towards reaching the target such as Millennium Development Goal. But it is only a technological development
and has not yet touched upon all sectors of development. ICT is not seen it yet as significant tools to
improve food production, to combat environmental hazards or even to improve access
to government services! The importance
of ICT in today’s world as underscored by observations, such as that by World
Bank, who proclaimed that ‘mobile communication arguably had a bigger impact on
humankind in a shorter period of time than any other inventions in human
history’. As I said earlier, such
technological development, in fact, has not filtered down to all sectors of
development where the common public are the beneficiaries at the grassroot
level. It is therefore necessary that every educated person in future would
know the use of ICT for development. Students
and young generation of today are leaders of tomorrow. It is absolutely essential that they acquire knowledge – not only in
theory – but through practice and engagement.
World civilization has now come to a stage where your mind-sets have to
be changed as well! We are talking about
a new age – new perception – and a methodology that will bring success and achievement
through Engaged Learning.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Over the last two days,
you the distinguished delegates from more than 20 countries including experienced
speakers and paper presenters have diligently discussed the issues and
programme. I am confident that the output
will help the universities of the regions to formulate a new curriculum for a
better education system in future. I
would like to thank our overseas participants for visiting Malaysia and Shah
Alam - the Green City of Selangor. I
would like to say ‘Sila Datang Lagi’ which mean ‘Please Come Again’.
With this, I would
like to declare the conference on “Engaged Learning and ICTD in University
Curriculum” closed.
