The Secretariat of Asian Association of Open Universities Conducted an Executive Committee Members Virtual Meeting

On Wednesday, 15 April 2020, the Asian Association Open Universities (AAOU) Secretariat has conducted a virtual meeting among the AAOU Executive Committee (ExCom) members on Microsoft Teams. The virtual meeting that was started at 10 AM and ended at 12 PM (Asia/Jakarta Time, UTC +7) was attended by five members of the AAOU ExCom members:

1. Prof. Ojat Darojat (the President of AAOU) from Universitas Terbuka (UT), Indonesia
2. Dr. Rahmat Budiman (the General Secretary of AAOU) from Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia
3. Dr. Melinda dP. Bandalaria from the University of Philippines of Open University (UPOU), Philippines
4. Prof. Lily Chan from Wawasan Open University (WOU), Malaysia
5. Dr. Zahid Majeed (representing Prof. Dr. Zia Ul-Qayyum) from Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), Pakistan

Initially, there were only Dr. Zahid Majeed and Dr. Melinda dP. Bandalaria who were able to join the virtual meeting room. However, in the first half hour, Prof. Lily Chan was finally able to enter the virtual meeting room and joined the others in the meeting. Unfortunately, the other four members who are from the Open University of Japan (OUJ), Open University of China (OUC), Korea National University (KNOU), and Payame Noor University (PNU) could not attend the meeting due to some reasons.

The meeting was inaugurated by the President of AAOU, Prof. Ojat Darojat. There were some issues which were urgently needed to be discussed on the meeting, such as the AAOU bank account settlement, the 34th AAOU Conference, the ExCom co-opted members, the international partnership offered by Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to the AAOU. The virtual meeting was done successfully, and every member was happy to be able tackling the urgent issues despite of the limited time and circumstances that have been going due to the pandemic of COVID-19. As one of the results of the meeting, the 34th AAOU Conference will be postponed to 2021, considering the current outbreak that may not enable the event organisers and attendants to participate in it. At last, the virtual meeting was closed by Dr. Rahmat Budiman, as he completed his speech.