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Kampala, Uganda | Julius Businge | The government should formulate a law to guide online education activities in times when learners are unable to face their teachers or lecturers, dons from Victoria University (Uganda) have said.
Bill R. Nkeeto, the dean for the faculty of Business and Management and Fred Kasirye, the dean for Faculty of Humanities shared their view at a breakfast meeting airing on local television station, NBS yesterday.
Their call comes amidst temporary closure of all schools and institutions of learning as a means to stop the spread of coronavirus pandemic.
Whereas some schools have maintained contact with their students using online tools, the government has insisted there should not be learning and assessing of learners during this time of coronavirus lockdown. Analysts had earlier said rich schools would afford to go on with teaching via online platforms something that would be unfair to the poor schools that deal with vulnerable learners.
Victoria University dons said that the post COVID-19 era might cause changes in teaching methods that may include using more of online platforms and less of physical classroom work.
“Government should come out and set standards to legalise online studies,” the dons said. “We need it as soon as possible,” they added. They said that the other government intervention on this would be, investing heavily in high speed internet infrastructure.
They said that teaching materials/module packages should be approved by the National Council for Higher Education in this process.
The dons added that online teaching comes with benefits including, reduced learning costs relating to accommodation/rent, printing and more.
On their part, the dons said they are already engaging their students by giving them learning materials to read during this time of COVID-19 lockdown.
Government officials have not come out to share their view on the proposal to have an education law.
But the Minister of Education and Sports and First Lady Janet Museveni said on a televised address on April 20 that during this lockdown period, the greatest contributors to learning are the parents and immediate family members.
She said that parents and families should help learning take place by involving the learners in their home activities to give them skills for life such as cooking, cleaning, gardening, farming, business, art, music, physical activity, sports activities and more.
In addition, she said that the ministry has identified the basic competences/concepts to study, harmonized learning packages/materials for use in the continuity of learning while learners are at home.
This process, she said, will be supported by guidelines that have been prepared by the ministry to be enforced by local governments.
The First Lady said that these learning materials will be delivered on radio and television stations and will mainly focus on primary one, primary seven and secondary school level. She also said that learners will receive pre-recorded lessons and others will access materials via online platforms.
