Makerere university on road to adopting blended learning

The deputy and acting vice chancellor (DVC) of Makerere University, Prof Umar Kakumba, has said the institution has enhanced capacity building to support students’ blended teaching and learning.

To realise the university’s ultimate goal of having an effective Open Distance and e-learning (ODeL) environment, institution management has acquired two high-end servers to support a repository of heavy files and videos.

Prof Kakumba said the servers were bought at Shs400 million each and can support all content development for the e-learning platform, Makerere University e-learning Environment (Muele).

“We are ensuring that the internet reaches at least every corner of the university. And through our service providers, the capacity of our Wi-Fi has improved,” Prof Kakumba said last week.  

The university won a grant of $2m (equivalent to Shs7bn) that will run for two years to do with e-learning qualitative development and e-learning capacity development.

“In terms of capacity development, we have been able to upgrade the ICT infrastructure that is supporting Muele using two high-end servers,” Prof Kakumba said.

He noted that even Muele systems have been upgraded to increase the operating speed.

In the management process, all the programmes of the university and the courses that are incorporated in the degree programmes, at postgraduate and undergraduate levels have a plot on Muele.

Training staff
The DVC revealed that the university has already designed an e-learning staff pedagogy which is a short certificate course that will be offered to all academic staff.

“They have already designed that and we are going to take that curriculum to the Senate and, once it is approved then we will start,” Prof Kakumba said.

The course is developed on the basis that staff at higher institutions of learning are recruited based on the performance of their first and second degrees.

“Appointment as lecturer does not make one a professional educationist, they therefore need the skills of how this blended learning system works,” Prof Kakumba explained.

Due to the high number of lecturers, they hope to register them in cohorts every four to six weeks. The academic said he is currently working with experts from the Institute of Teaching and Learning under the College of Education and External Studies (CEES).

Staff will be equipped with skills on how to set the curriculum, how to design it, and how to incorporate learning objectives, and learning outcomes.

Other areas of focus will be learning how to assess or test the student’s competence and how to craft course objects, among others.

Upon completion, the trainees (lecturers) will be awarded certificates and after five years, they will need a refresher certification.

“If Makerere starts this course, we will be at the same level as universities in Europe and South Africa, which are already using this model,” he said.

The lecturers will be given a gestation period of two years to go through the training and failure to comply, they will not be assigned work.

“It will help lecturers to avoid doing funny things that we usually do in class without knowing.

Policy development
Makerere University has developed a learning agenda through the policy framework passed by the senate and university council on blended learning awaiting printing by the academic registrar, Prof Mukasi Buyinza.

The revised teaching and learning policy of 2023 at Uganda’s premier institution has already enshrined blended teaching and learning. This policy is believed to fulfill the pillar of innovative teaching.

Among other policies enshrined in the academic policy manual rotate around credit unit and semester system, examination and admission, and different schemes.

Evaluation of e-Learning
After the Covid-19 lockdown in 2021, Mr Arthur Mugisha, the principal investigator (PI) of the Comprehensive Evaluation of Blended Learning (CEBL) embarked on a project to assess e-learning.

The Government of Uganda funds the project through Makrif.

CEBL research first looked at undergraduate students in phase one and later post-graduate students during the project’s second phase.

The findings from phase one indicated that 51 percent of the undergraduate students were ready to take up blended learning whereas 49 percent were skeptical because they were not consulted.

But at the end of the day, students said e-learning was the way to go, but asked the university to establish a one-stop centre with all necessary resources to facilitate smooth learning.

Mr Mugisha conducted the second phase of the study with the post-graduate programmes and findings indicated that at least 92 percent of them understood blended learning.

Eighty -eight percent of the  samples used indicated having laptops and were very fine with the blended learning since the majority are working class.

Prof Anthony Muwagga Mugagga, principal of CEES, said lecturers at the College of Education have adopted blended learning and are teaching students online.

“As a leader in the educational pedagogy and ICT, we will be able to help the entire university to adopt blended learning and teaching and to help our students,” Prof Mugagga said.

He noted that the model was tested on students, especially in Adult education and they preferred being online. “It helps them even when they are upcountry to be able to learn and it saves some resources.”  

New approach 

“Appointment as lecturer does not make one a professional educationist, they therefore need the skills of how this blended learning system works,” Prof  Umar Kakumba, the deputy vice chancellor of Makerere University said.

Due to the high number of lecturers, they hope to register them in cohorts every four to six weeks. The trainees (lecturers) will be awarded certificates.

“If Makerere starts this course, we will be at the same level as universities in Europe and South Africa,” he said.