Makerere University‘s top management has been urged to take a keen interest in financing the open distance and e-learning institute.
While he officiated the dissemination of the comprehensive evaluation of blended learning uptake (CEBL), Prof. Muwagga Mugagga, the Principal of Makerere College of Education and External Studies (CEES) said that ODeL had not only spared headed bent learning at Makerere but also all over Uganda.
He noted that while government programs at the time (Covid time) required teachers to teach through electronic media, a lot of the teaching staff were alien to the program not until they were oriented by the staff from Makerere which meant a lot of work behind the scene
“After evaluating what took place in Makerere, we are requesting for more funds to go and evaluate how our trainees are firing as far as
blended teaching is concerned all over the country,” he said adding that
“The school of education has only 70 computers servicing over 4000 undergraduate and 200 graduate students, the ratio of 70 to around 5000 is a sad one, with computers on board and facilitation to the member of staff that would be a great achievement of the centenary.”
Prof. Mugagga added that much as ODeL was never denied a chance to gamble out on how best to deliver a blended learning program, they couldn’t help but think that the college of education has always been left behind by the ministry of education and that the schools needed it.
He however recommended that learners should also adapt to the digital world and try to learn how to use the digital facilities saying that with a better philosophy around blended learning then even the challenges combined with the digital error will be eliminated
The study in one of its recommendations agreed that; a basic Blended Learning (BL) course should be initiated for both lecturers and learners, create regional BL centers of excellence for specialists to support off-campus BL activities, attach ODeL Specialists to each of the university units with clear terms of reference and the need to rotate technical staff across colleges on an annual basis to give learners an opportunity to get exposed to support from various personnel among others.
Dr. Arthur Mugisha the Principal Investigator of the project said that the CEBL project was informed by the emergency open distance and e-learning, “a pedagogy that was to be used to necessitate continued learning through innovate ways however ensuring quality.”
CEBL, he said therefore aimed at finding out whether the university mainly the lecturers and students had been prepared adequately, evaluating the satisfactory level of the program, and infusing the feedback in the already existing reports to make a final report.
“We have achieved on all fronts, dissemination was part of this milestone and we now aim at infusing the feedback into the already existing data and come up with a final report which will be shared country-wide,” he said.
Dr. Paul Birevu, the head Institute of Open Distance and e-Learning noted that distance education was still alien to many Ugandans.
Though Makerere University adopted the system in 1991, Dr. Birevi said that it was not in all programs but in a few.
“The main reason
as to why Makerere university upgraded the Department of Distance Education to ODeL was to enhance its capacity to train even other institutions,’ he said.
