By Sara Namusoga-Kaale
World over, education institutions were some of the worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. In Uganda, schools and universities were the first to be closed as soon as the first Covid-19 case was announced.
Makerere, like most universities, migrated their teaching and learning activities online. The university was accredited by the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) to conduct teaching and learning, as well as exams, online. Makerere has now gone a step further and embarked on developing e-content for 2,560 courses across the 10 colleges, evidence that lessons were learnt.
This has been made possible through a $2 million eLearning project under the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme, which was launched on 20 September 2022.
Speaking at the launch, Prof. Mary Okwakol, the Executive Director of the NCHE, hailed the project as a key milestone in the growth of eLearning at Makerere University, and one that is at the heart of NCHE.
"Online learning is at the heart of the Council, not only because of the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, but also, the world is now a digital world,” Prof. Okwakol noted.
The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe, urged academic staff to use the opportunity to develop e-content in order to enhance the eLearning capacity at Makerere University for both themselves and the students.
”I appeal to the colleges to embrace this project and have as many courses adopt this pedagogy development system. Even though students will continue with face-to face learning, they should be allowed the option of online learning,” Prof. Nawangwe said.
On his part, Prof. Paul Birevu Muyinda, the Director, Institute of Distance and eLearning (IODEL) at Makerere University, and the coordinator of the MasterCard eLearning initiative, stressed the fact that Makerere was home to some of the most highly qualified persons in eLearning in Uganda and beyond. He noted, “It is now up to Makerere University in particular, and the country in general, to make use of these persons to transform the terrain of online, blended distance and e-learning education.”
So far, the project has trained 32 mentors/eLearning champions to support subject matter experts (lecturers) in the development of e-content for their courses, says Dr Godfrey Mayende, the Programme Manager of the eLearning initiative. “Once the courses are ready, the lecturers will be assisted by their mentors and IODEL to upload them onto the Makerere University eLearning Environment (MUELE). It is easier to upload a course online when you have the e-content ready,” he adds.
A number of lecturers have developed e-content for their courses. According to Dr Mayende, at least 70 courses have fully developed eLearning content.
In addition to building the capacity of lecturers to create e-content for their courses, Dr Mayende explains that the project will boost MUELE by procuring two servers for storage and one server for live streaming. They will also set up five multimedia studios to enable subject matter experts to record e-content.
The university has a policy on ensuring that all courses are developed into blended learning. According to Dr Mayende, “Even when the MCF eLearning Initiative project ends, the university will carry on with the eLearning activities. Besides, the MCF eLearning Initiative has built the capacity of a number of staff that will be able to systematically work online,”
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