USQ wins Commonwealth award for excellence

The University of Southern Queensland has won the Commonwealth of Learning Award of Excellence for Institutional Achievement at the third Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning currently being held in Dunedin, New Zealand.

This prestigious award adds to the suite of national and international awards already won by USQ in the fields of open and distance learning, education export and multiculturalism.

In 1999, USQ was voted Best Dual Mode University by the UNESCO-based International Council for Open and Distance Learning (ICDE) and in the same year USQ Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Global Learning), Professor Jim Taylor, was awarded the ICDE Individual Prize for Excellence for services to distance education. These awards were followed by the Good Universities Guides Australian University of the Year 2000-2001 (joint winner) for developing the e-University, the NSW Ethnic Affairs Commission award for multicultural marketing, the Queensland Government Export Award (education category) and the Queensland Multiculturalism Award.

USQ Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Bill Lovegrove, who was in Dunedin to accept the award, said he was delighted to receive the Commonwealth of Learning’s most prestigious award and that USQ had once again won international recognition for its provision of flexible learning opportunities for people with diverse social and cultural backgrounds.

“In recent years USQ has developed international leadership in online education as one component of what we describe as a ‘triple option, dual mode’ service for learners of all ages,” Professor Lovegrove said.

“We believe that the use of pedagogically sound teaching materials and support systems make it possible for learners to achieve quality outcomes irrespective of their mode of study.

“At USQ, we surround and support our teaching and learning function with e-infrastructure that facilitates administrative and academic support campus-wide and across all disciplines, regardless of whether they are on-campus or external students.”

Professor Lovegrove said USQ’s international awards reflected the university’s leadership in flexible learning and the use of modern information communication technologies to build learning communities.

Federal Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources and Member for Groom, Ian Macfarlane, congratulated USQ on gaining the award.

“As Australia’s Minister for Industry, I am well aware of the growing ‘industry’ of online education. It has been through learning organizations such as USQ that Australia has developed and maintained leadership in this increasingly competitive field,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“USQ has been instrumental in achieving this lead and this has come about as a result of the university’s long-time commitment to providing quality distance education to people where they live, and its commitment to the strategic planning and development of the necessary infrastructure and university systems to deliver education at a distance. Central to this success has been a commitment to quality of content and especially quality of service to its students.”

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is a 53 member inter-governmental organization created by the Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. The COL works with Commonwealth nations to improve access to quality education and training for more than 1.7 billion people.

COL recognises and honours excellence in distance education through its biennial awards. To date, 10 institutions and 21 individuals have been honoured at two ceremonies held in Brunei Darussalam and Durban, South Africa since the awards originated in 1999.

Gus Snow-McLean +61 7 4631 2977