Leadership Development for Sustainability of E-Learning

Abstract

The global technological advancements, challenges and opportunities as well as the launching of the Malaysian National Higher Education Strategic Plan (NHESP) in 2007 that states clearly the need to transform, amongst others, learning and teaching in higher education institutions, have generated a call for and debates on leadership development in learning and teaching. Questions have been raised on what kind of leadership is needed in the transformation of higher education in learning and teaching in Malaysia. How do we develop and sustain such leadership? Further, does the conception of leadership in learning and teaching take into account the uniqueness of Malaysia's socio-economic culture? This paper discusses issues related to leadership development for sustainability of e-Learning in Malaysia's higher education. It examines current developments in the field. In particular, it describes the recently introduced National Policy on e-Learning. It discusses the development of leadership for sustainability of e-Learning based on the Higher Education Leadership Model being developed by the Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT). This paper argues that there is a need to nurture and enhance young academic leaders in order to sustain e-Learning, at least in the transformation of eLearning in higher education in Malaysia.