COVID-19 has caused major disruptions in higher education systems worldwide. In Mauritius, during the 2020 and 2021 national lockdowns, local universities had to pivot to online/blended learning and emergency remote teaching. However, few higher education institutions (HEIs) in Mauritius were prepared for online learning, resorting mostly to emergency remote teaching. It was observed that there was a dearth of quality assurance guidelines and standards for Online/blended Learning, hence underlining the need to support HEIs in their transition from face-to-face to online delivery, while simultaneously upholding the quality of the programmes delivered. With funding from the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council (MRIC), a project was submitted jointly by the University of Mauritius and the Open University of Mauritius to help mitigate the impact of COVID‑19 on Mauritius’ higher education sector and its students, by providing short-term solutions in the form of quality assurance rubrics and an ODL handbook, so that HEIs can ensure the continuity of high-quality education with minimal disruptions during the pandemic and beyond. These tools were validated at national and institutional levels in order to capture specificities of the local context while meeting international standards (benchmarks). Based on interviews of key stakeholders, policy makers, CEOs of HEIs and the research team’s knowledge and experience in this field, a number of recommendations emerged. This paper will present the methodology, major findings, recommendations and tools developed under this project. It is also hoped that online learning becomes part and parcel of the DNA of HEIs, to build the robustness and resilience of their online learning provisions so that they can confidently face any future disruptions.

This paper presents the co-creation of a University-wide Open Educational Resource (OER) on Transdisciplinary Skills and Competencies for enhancing graduate employment with the necessary knowledge, values, and attitudes for building a more resilient workforce in an increasingly uncertain future. The four Key Pillars underlying education and life from the highly influential, and increasingly relevant, Delor’s report (1996) underpinned the development of future-thinking stances for the first-year students as they engaged with learning activities that enabled them to: 1. Learn to know: Investigate their own learning and courses with more agency and depth through metacognitive strategies. 2. Learn to do: Relate theoretical knowledge to more relevant, practical, transdisciplinary applications through collaboration on working towards solution-oriented and challenge-based learning. 3. Learn to live together: This entails the cross-fertilization and respect of each-others’ ideas to bring about innovation through a learning environment that is conducive for thriving together. 4. Learning to be: Developing the human potential to its fullest, especially the skills, competencies and attitudes required to work in an increasingly connected world with greater responsibility for the attainment of common goals. // The objective of the action research was to co-create the OER with the input of both academics and students from different faculties. The collaboratively designed learning activities were adapted to different disciplines and educational contexts to enable learners to be assessed for four main value-laden skills and competencies: a) Collaborative Networking (comprising Cultural awareness, Acknowledging differences, Personal branding, Team playing and trust building, Virtuous circles). b) Communication Networking (comprising Social and Emotional Intelligence, Technology-enhanced Communications, verbal and non-verbal communication, conflict management). c) Growth Mindsets (comprising Solution Orientedness, Grit and determination, Opportunity seeking, creative and critical thinking, design thinking. d) Professional and Ethical Practices (comprising case studies and role plays to demonstrate Social responsibility, Sustainable development, Managing ethical dilemmas and transformational leadership). // 9 faculty members and their respective students formed part of the action research and while co-creation is perhaps too innovative and disruptive for certain academics, the students were appreciative of the opportunity of having a voice and participating in the co-creation of the learning activities that would develop their full potential. This study demonstrates the need for engaging with learners so that they are aware of the active role they play in the learning environment and to build resilience and self-efficacy from within.

The Open University of Mauritius (OUM) pioneered the design and delivery of a MOOC, ‘Sustainable Development in Business’ in 2019, in collaboration with the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), as part of COL’s strategy for “increasing access to learners on environmental awareness”. This MOOC facilitated access to SDG materials to a global audience where participants would learn from each other: challenges, lessons and good practice. There were two intakes in 2020 and 2021 as the world was battling against Covid-19. With more than 13,000 registered participants in the four runs of the MOOC (May 2019, November 2019, June 2020, and April 2021), this highly successful MOOC has been a learning experience for the local team. This paper aims to explore the challenges and lessons learnt at the different stages: conception and design of the MOOC bearing in mind cultural diversity, marketing, managing multidisciplinary teams from different institutions, using the mooKIT platform and using feedback to review the MOOC. Being the first-ever Mauritian-led MOOC with predominantly Mauritian learners, this paper contributes to the literature on the lived experiences of the collaborators in developing and facilitating the MOOC. It is hoped that the lessons learnt will empower other institutions embarking on MOOCs to build impactful MOOCs.

Described as the “single great new development in education” (Wedemeyer, 1981:60), distance education would further expand with the advent of technology and the internet in the 1990’s. It can be argued that Covid-19 in 2020 has acted as another catalyst for bringing online and blended learning to the front scene (Zhao, 2020). At the University of Mauritius, distance education and online learning were introduced at the University of Mauritius in 1991 and 2001 respectively. Since 2014, online and blended learning is under the purview of the Centre for Innovative and Lifelong learning: CILL provides infrastructural and pedagogical support for the development of online and blended learning and has the autonomy to initiate projects. This has led to the creation of a sub- culture at CILL where CILL would continue to operate on the margin/periphery of the mainstream activities of the UoM. Innovations at CILL included innovative modes of delivery, assessment and adopting an entrepreneurial/intrapreneurial culture of collegially approaching the Industry for customised training programmes and corporate training solutions. These innovations were most of the time being limited to the activities of CILL. Covid-19 has since 2020 led to a reversal of the situation. Covid-19 has highlighted how many of the innovations introduced by CILL some 25 years ago have ensured robustness and resilience of the Centre’s activities in the face of disruptions caused by the pandemic. Post-lockdown, some of the models would be deployed to the whole of the University. This paper, through exploratory desk research, will explore how these innovations paved the way for preparedness at CILL and how these were escalated to University-wide level, where ‘going against the tide’ becomes the norm.