Varsities ‘compete’ to expand higher learning

Regional university chiefs say key objective of distance and open learning programmes is to give students affordable and high quality education

Increasing demand for access to higher education in East Africa has opened opportunities for universities to develop robust distance education programmes, according to university dons.

University of Nairobi Vice-Chancellor Prof George Magoha, while launching degree programmes to be offered by its College of Education and External Studies through distance and e-learning modes recently, expressed satisfaction that online open and distance learning processes are emerging as credible alternatives to traditional educational delivery techniques.

Currently, the university offers several undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in education, social sciences and commerce through distance learning.

“Open and distance learning has great potential as an effective tool for provision of education in developing countries because of its flexibility,” said Magoha.

While some distance learning existed at the university as early as 1967, it only started to take off in the mid-1980s when a BEd degree was launched with funding from the British Government.

Stupendous growth

According to Prof David Macharia, the chair of the department of distance studies, the materials developed for the programme were used to establish similar distance learning degree courses at the open universities of Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Since the 1990s, there had been stupendous growth in tertiary distance education in East Africa.

E-Platforms

The Open University of Tanzania, the only stand-alone distance learning university in the region, was established in 1992 and offers undergraduate and postgraduate studies in a wide range of disciplines.

“Our core mandate is to provide our students with affordable high quality education,” said Vice-chancellor Tolly Mbwette, adding that the university now has eight faculties and operates through 29 regional centres and about 70 study sites.

In addition to having wide reach in its home country, the Tanzanian institution has established learning nodes in Kenya at Egerton University in Nakuru and KCA University in Nairobi.

“We have started learning operations at Kibungo in Rwanda and plans are underway to open study sites in Burundi and Uganda,” said Mbwette.

Robust distance learning has also been going on at Kenyatta University for the past 15 years, offering several undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Education. Amid efforts to revamp distance learning, three years ago, the university re-branded its Institute of Open Learning to become the Institute of Open, Distance and e-Learning.

“We took a practical approach by addressing issues of distance learning, e-learning tool-kits, computer-mediated learning and libraries,” said VC Prof Olive Mugenda.

An interactive e-platform was put in place to enable students and lecturers to hold discussions in the form of e-debates, e-tutorials, e-workshops and e-conferencing.

Although Kenyatta and Nairobi are ahead of other local universities in distance education, Moi, Mt Kenya and Maseno also have advanced distance education programmes.

Some of the most popular are school-based programmes that target teachers interested in studying for undergraduate or postgraduate degrees in Education on a part-time basis.

East Africa is also home to the African Virtual University (AVU), a pan-African intergovernmental organisation based in Nairobi. It was founded in 1997 as a World Bank-funded project to address the need for quality tertiary education in sub-Saharan Africa.

Financial constraints

In 2002, AVU attained independent status and shifted focus from awarding its own certificate courses to being a facilitator of degrees for identified lead universities.

However, its contract to source quality degree programmes, which would be delivered through distance learning to students via 24 universities, had not worked as intended by 2006 due to financial hiccups.

“Financial constraints forced the lead partner universities to stop delivering programmes to AVU and the initiative was finally scrapped in 2007,” said Dr Kuzvinetsa Peter Dzimbo, a former AVU rector and chief administrator.

To stay relevant, AVU shifted its paradigm towards enhancing the capacity of African universities to use open, distance and e-learning methodologies.

The Largest

It recently launched the Multinational Project II, a flagship programme that brings together 21 African countries whose institutions will benefit from the initiative funded by the African Development Bank.

In Uganda, Makerere is running several external degree programmes in education, business and sciences from its School of Distance and Lifelong Learning.

Also, Kampala International University, a private institution, has established one of the largest open and distance learning programmes in East Africa.

Its College of Education, Open, Distance and e-Learning has crafted more than 20 undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and diplomas that are taught through printed media modules and limited e-learning.

The University of Dar-es-Salaam has in the past two years established several open, distance and e-learning centres in different towns as part of expanding its nascent distance education provision.

Despite such bold steps, distance learning in East Africa has encountered many obstacles, including poor teaching and learning practices.

According to Prof Peter Kinyanjui, a former principal education specialist at the Canada-based Commonwealth of Learning, most distance education courses in the region are carbon copies of traditional ones, which is not appropriate for distance learning.

A primary issue is that most of the programmes still use print media modules as the medium of instruction.

There is also an immense shortage of current journals and publications on distance education and very few universities have been able to subscribe to publications, videos, CDs and other distance learning multimedia.

Slow internet connectivity and low bandwidth have also impacted negatively on programmes. Access to advanced information technology, fast internet connections and digital libraries would greatly benefit distance learning courses and help them to succeed.

Swift access

Scarcity of computing resources including computers, servers and software, which few universities can afford in reasonable quantities, has affected their ability to upgrade from print to e-learning models as the basis for instruction.

According to Kinyanjui, open and distance higher education has taken off in East Africa — and would be even more successful with additional funding to support the training of lecturers to develop e-learning content, the installation of e-learning platforms and swift access to online libraries.