Organizations continue to be faced with a unique set of circumstances and challenges as a result of COVID-19, especially the challenges of bringing about change within organizations.
Leading Organizational Transitions During COVID-19 and Beyond is a custom designed program created by Niagara College for leaders and managers of global technical and vocational education and training (TVET) who are responsible for leading organizational change initiatives.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) funded program is offered through a webinar series to 60 global participants. The learning opportunity is free of charge to organizations as part of the 2020 International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNEVOC) TVET Leadership Program Special Edition. Participants include Niagara College staff and faculty, as well as global TVET leaders from the UNESCO-UNEVOC network hailing from 15 different countries from Australia, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Iraq, Jamaica, Malawi, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia and Sri Lanka.
“Niagara College is excited about bringing together college educators from around the world to discuss how critical leadership is during this truly unprecedented time in higher education and we are grateful for the support of UNESCO-UNEVOC in this endeavour,” said Niagara College vice president, International, Sean Coote.
NC’s Global Education and Partnerships (GEP) division and the Centre for Organizational Excellence (COE) collaboratively developed the learning series to provide practical tools for planning change and transition, building leadership skills during times of change and minimizing or avoiding pitfalls during organizational change. The series is also a space for dialogue and collaboration, enabling a global community of professional perspectives and support for those implementing and leading change initiatives in their own organizations.
The program focuses on change and transition, leadership characteristics for inclusive change, handling organizational transition during the COVID-19 pandemic, and minimizing negative impacts of change on organizations and teams.
“As TVETs across the world work to manage the changes and opportunities created by the pandemic, we are looking forward to creating an international learning community on this important topic,” shared Niagara College associate director, Human Resources, Julie Stitt.
The program is one of many UNESCO-UNEVOC and UNESCO activities that Niagara College has been involved with over the past few years.
Niagara College represented Canada at the UNESCO 2018 UNEVOC Leadership Programme held at the United Nations Campus in Bonn, Germany. Successful collaborative discussions during the opportunity led to NC partnering with UNESCO-UNEVOC to develop a discussion paper on emerging best practices for teacher education on the use of digital technology in TVET pedagogy.
NC’s manager of Global Projects, Kyla Pennie, delivered a workshop on Social Inclusion and Gender Equality in TVET for the Caribbean 2019 TVET Leadership program, which was hosted by UNESCO-UNEVOC. Most recently, NC was part of a European Union-funded effort to reform the technical education system in Malawi through a contract from UNESCO as part of the larger Skills and Technical Education Programme (STEP).
Over the past 20 years, Niagara College has successfully completed more than 100 capacity building and training projects in over 25 countries, including Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Malawi, Saint Lucia, Jamaica, Barbados and Grenada.
For more information on Global Education and Partnerships and how to get involved, visit ncglobal.ca.
For more information on the Centre for Organizational Excellence, visit niagaracollege.ca/coe/.
