GUIDE Association offers strategic support to its members to build up partnership, draft and develop project proposals and establish networks and for research results exchange and dissemination.
Projects with African Countries
GUIDE Association’s fundamental aim is to promote the spread of culture and higher education in developing countries with a particular attention to the African context.
In the light of that, the Association organized the Thematic Workshop African and Middle-Eastern Area - “Sustainable development of learning systems in Africa and Middle-East through Microcredit” which was held in Dubai on 25-26 November 2007. The purpose of the Workshop was to analyze the opportunities given by microcredit and microfinance for the promotion of educational projects and sustainable development for higher education in African and Middle-Eastern regions.
In accordance with the Millennium Development Goals and the International Year of Microcredit, the meeting favoured the sharing of information about the evolution of ODL and the adoption of ICTs in the traditional education systems of African countries. The Workshop also contributed to reinforce GUIDE presence in Africa thanks to the joining of new regional institutions active in the territory.
The constant networking activity carried out in the area led to the establishment of a strong cooperation with two important worldwide organizations engaged in the socio-economic and educational-cultural development of the African Region: ICDE – International Council for Open and Distance Education and ACDE – African Council for Distance Education.
Some of GUIDE African and Middle-Eastern members take part in two international projects specifically oriented towards local development:
- TIES - Towards an Internationalisation of Higher Education Network for the Meda Region – in the framework of TEMPUS IV programme, aims at developing the internationalization culture in the universities of the MEDA region. By creating the TIES network, the project aims at improving the development of international cooperation activities through the exchange of know-how, managerial capacities and good practice for the management of International Relations.
- STRATEGICOM, in the framework of TEMPUS IV programme, is addressed to Algerian universities and aims at formulating a communications strategy based on an in-depth analysis of European Universities best practices in communication adapted to local needs. The project will lead to the definition of strategies useful to reform the communication procedures within the Algerian universities and their higher education structure.
Projects with Latin American Countries
The fruitful cooperation between the Association and its Latin American members has lead to the establishment of bilateral cooperation agreement encouraging students, professors and researchers mobility and favoring the development of joint educational programmes and courses.
The collaboration activities promoted by GUIDE allow the creation of partnerships useful to build up projects financed by the European Commission or other international organizations.
In this light, El Gate - Latin American University Cooperation Gate -, a European co-financed project partially funded by the European Union in the framework of the ALFA III programme, aims at strengthening the cooperation activity with some Latin American universities. The project strategy is to develop and strengthen the capacity building of the Universities’ International Departments thanks to the transfer of cooperation models experienced by some European universities in recent years. The project will thus help generating a tight cooperation network between European institutions and Latin American ones.
In order to support the development of virtual learning in Latin America and to further reinforce the cooperation between the Association and Latin America, the first GUIDE International Seminar has been organized in Florianopolis - Brazil, on 14th and 15th October 2010 - in collaboration with CEDIPROE (Argentina) and UnisulVirtual (Brazil).
The Seminar evidenced the importance of identifying effective strategies for the implementation of Virtual Higher Education in Latin America. It has been an important occasion to improve the exchange between the two continents, by putting in evidence problems and prospects related to the development and improvement of Virtual Higher Education programs.
The focus of the discussion was the enhancement of new organizational models within the university system able to give an answer to the need of flexibility, internationalization and interdisciplinary research, structural reformulation and training works required by virtual education nowadays.
The future development of higher education in Latin America will be based on the Universities capability to invest in research and to adopt new structural models inspired by the entrepreneurial world of information and knowledge in consequent interaction with new global actors.
The list of institutions available on this website under the section Current membres, gives an overview on universities or private and public bodies, potentially interested in establishing useful partnerships for the development of global cooperation projects.