Charting a Course for Collaborations: Learning in a Post-Covid-19 Era
A report from the 2022 AUA Academic Conference

As the adage says, success does not happen by accident. It is the product of arduous work. To us particularly, teamwork has been the key to the successful 2022 Asian Universities Alliance (AUA) Academic Conference on Learning in a Post-Covid-19 Era that took place from June 16-17, 2022

The Faculty of Education at Chulalongkorn University, was honored to co-host the conference with AUA, welcoming all the inspiring presenters. We were fortunate to be joined by Dr. Riel Miller, former Head of Futures Literacy at UNESCO and Prof. Dr. Somkiat Tankitvanich, President of Thailand Development Research Institute, who served as honorable keynote speakers. Their addresses set the tone of the conference enriching the exchanges that followed in panel discussions. 

The conference featured three-day pre-conference workshops from June 13-15, 2022, which were designed for practitioners to boost their professional development. These hands-on events were organized by the following academic units within the Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University: 1) Department of Art, Music, and Dance Education, 2) Department of Curriculum and Instruction, 3) Department of Educational Technology and Communications, 4) Department of Educational Policy, Management, and Leadership, 5) Department of Educational Research and Psychology, 6) Department of Lifelong Education, 7) Chulalongkorn University Demonstration Secondary School, and 8) Chulalongkorn University Demonstration Primary School. Each speaker had engaged in extended conversation to bring out the best practices that represented their teams’ efforts. 

Besides the teamwork within the Faculty of Education, cross-unit collaborations among diverse groups, gave rise to this successful conference. The groups include the Office of Academic Resources (broadcasting team),  the Office of International Affairs and Global Network, and the AUA Secretariat based at Tsinghua University. 

As the theme of the conference (i.e., Learning in a Post-Covid-19 Era) suggested, the organizers have learned so much as this was our first virtual international conference on Zoom Webinar. 

The insightful and thought-provoking ideas and inputs from the conference participants are in queue to be published, both in our Journal of Education Studies, and on our website, coming up soon. 

We look forward to meeting familiar faces as well as new scholars, colleagues in our joint future undertakings. 

Sara Samiphak, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Assistant Dean
Faculty of Education
Chulalongkorn University