Speaking when he gave opening remarks at the two-day Capacity Building Workshop on Open and Distance Learning (ODL) and Open Education Resources for Higher Education Stakeholders in Zambia, Dr. Mushumba emphasised that it was the starting point for a long and robust relationship between the two organisations.

“This relationship will translate into quality education by fostering effective and quality Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that provide quality education through ODL,” Dr. Mushumba said, adding, “this will expand the provision of quality higher education in the country.”

The Acting Director-General also expressed his gratitude to COL for coming in at a very timely moment in the development of the higher education subsector to capacitate the subsector regarding ODL.

“HEIs that have purely provided ODL have continued to face stigma due to the equation of quality to brick-and-mortar facilities being seen,” Dr. Mushumba said, adding that the knowledge that HEIs will gain will ensure that the quality of ODL learning programmes they offer is bolstered and not questioned compared to traditional face-to-face learning programmes.

Dr. Mushumba further thanked COL for ensuring that through the Capacity Building Workshop, HEA will continue building quality education in the higher education subsector.

Furthermore, the Acting Director-General thanked COL for providing specialised training to members of staff at HEA through the Capacity Building Workshop that will allow the Authority to obtain the optimal from its staff as they now have specialisation in a targeted field.

“When you look at HEA, all the people that work at HEA come from different professions, that include education, health sciences, engineering, public health specialists and policy analysts,” Dr. Mushumba said, adding, “getting the optimal from our staff will, thus, require such capacity building that will provide further specialisation in in a targeted field.”

HEA hosted the Capacity Building Workshop with the financial support of COL. The Workshop was held on 9^th and 10^th October, 2023, at Neelkanth Sarovar Premiere in Lusaka. The Workshop was facilitated by Dr. Jako Olivier, Adviser: Higher Education at Commonwealth of Learning (COL).