Having planned to travel and physically attend the EEASA conference 2020 in South Africa, it’s cancellation due to coronavirus was a heart breaker for me. But then a move was made by the organizers to have the conference online, I was not so thrilled having had some disastrous online meetings before. Nonetheless, I went ahead to register and even invited as many friends as I could to be part of the conference.

The online conference was scheduled for the 6th and 7th October 2020 and was to be conducted via Zoom.  On the first day, I logged in at 9 am and there was a welcome remark from the organizers firstly. Then we got a history of how EEASA started and just knowing that it was an initiative of incredible and dedicated but yet humble people some of whom are my colleagues is remarkable.

The two days ended as soon as they began. The sessions were interactive, educational, and informative with inspirational speakers discussing real-life matters in education, policy, environment, agriculture among others. One of my best discussions was on climate change education and I felt as though the discussion should be pushed forward because climate change is a global issue that might soon become a catastrophe if not paid attention to. One amazing thing is that surveys filled by the participants at the end of the session showed that the highest number of people in the conference agree that climate change as a subject in schools should be made compulsory across all courses. As the VET Africa 4.0 project team in Uganda, there is already a huge gap in the curriculum when it comes to the environment particularly on climate change. And I too agree and believe that climate change education should be taught to everyone thus ensuring collective efforts in addressing climate change challenges.

Like I mentioned earlier, the two days seemed like a few hours in a day. The smooth and lively running of the conference could almost make you forget it was an online conference. All in all, it was a superb first online EEASA conference and I look forward to the conference next year.

Author: Adrupio Scovia