At the end of February, Professor of the Faculty of Management and Economics (FAME) - Tomas Bata University in Zlin had to cancel the flight at the last minute. The Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the VSB - Technical University of Ostrava and a group of professors of the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague also could not implement their working schedule in March and April due to the COVID-19 deriving from Wuhan. Hence, the European Cooperation Center (ECC) and Bata Center contacted and promoted the teaching, guidance, and preparing for the online exams. Universities of the Czech Republic had the permission of the Ministry of Education, Youth Union, and Sports to organize specialized subjects, proposals, graduate thesis and postgraduate thesis of Master and Ph. D. defenses via online form.
In May, June, and July, the ECC and partner school units organized many online classes for the postgraduate students of the Sandwich Program. On 3rd and 4th of June, the Center had collaborated with the Faculty of FAME to successfully hold the online exams of Methodology and Statistics subjects for seven students studying the Doctoral Sandwich Program. Dr. Hmonolka – Deputy Head of Department who is in charge of doctoral training programs and Prof. Pavelkova, Knapkova, Chovancova highly appreciated the thoughtful and hard-working preparation of the students. On the side of Ton Duc Thang University, participating in the council had Dr. Do Thi Thanh Nhan, former graduate student of FAME.
Early July, the Center also collaborated with the Faculty of FEI – Technical University of Ostrava to organize the online exams for eight students. Exam council members were Prof. V. Snasel – Rector of VSB - Technical University of Ostrava, Dr. Phan Dao – Director of the European Cooperation Center, Assoc. Prof. Vo Bay, and Dr. Huynh Quoc Bao. Two postgraduate students, Tran Dinh Cuong and Ho Dang Sang also took their pre-defense successfully. They have prepared for their official defenses in the fourth quarter of 2020 in Czech Republic.
Currently, due to the COVID-19, universities have been promoting online teaching methods with various familiar tools such as MS Teams, Skype… and building new technical foundations and methods for a long-term response to the pandemic and other force majeure situations.