Varsities asked to invest more on ICT

By RAWLINGS OTIENO

Universities have been urged to invest more in the Information and Communication Technology to enhance quality education in the East Africa region, researchers have said.

In the recent survey, Kenya was found to have invested in the ICT to boost their competition with the rest of the mighty higher learning Institutions across the globe.

According to the latest ICT survey for East Africa Universities, Makerere Business School has yet again emerged the winner among top 100 universities with 13.49, followed by Kenya’s Strathmore University 12.84.

Others among top five Universities include, Busitema of Uganda, School of Finance and Banking of Rwanda and Kenya’s Multimedia University College beating its mother University Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) which came a distant 19.

CPS International Social and Market Research Regional Director Dann Mwangi said ICT has become the fulcrum on which the world revolves and everyone has to keep himself or herself updated on the current trends, innovations and inventions.

While releasing the survey report at a Nairobi hotel Thursday, Mwangi noted that Private universities have invested more in ICT than public universities in all the East African countries with upcoming constituent university colleges of Public universities in Kenya having better ICT facilities than their main universities.

The imbalance of educational resources which ranks some institutions of higher learning into either best or poor can be addressed by application of ICT through e-educational and e-learning tools and networks as they link students in the categories to virtual classes together.

The report showed that ICT has opened up East African universities in sharing and access of academic materials, research materials and corporate social responsibilities information. This has revolutionised the academic sector in East Africa.

The ranking of the Universities was done based on ICT Policy, Infrastructural facilities, Faculty’s use and access, Students’ use and access to ICT tools and the use of ICT in the Finance Department.

During the research, it was observed that there is a close relationship between institutions that are ISO Certified or working towards ISO Certification and adequate access and compliance with ICT.

The ISO Certified institutions to enhance compliance with the ISO certification regimes have positively used ICT.

Mwangi said added that Kenya had invested heavily in ICT than all other East African countries while Burundi government has invested the least.

East African universities have embraced Information Communication Technology (ICT) and are competing favorably with international universities in the use of ICT.