The Challenges of Harnessing the Emerging Educational Delivering and

Learning Technologies within Campus-Based Universities in Africa

Prof. Clement Dzidonu

President, Global Village University (GVU)

The University with a Global Reachwww.g-vu.com

Introduction• Meeting rising social expectations about higher education

when resources are diminishing presents major challenges to many African institutions of higher education.

• The emerging educational delivery technologies and systems are no doubt opening up a number of educational delivery opportunities for campus-based universities in African countries

• These technologies do present Africa’s conventional campus-based universities the opportunity to complement and supplement face-to-face campus based education within their institutions, assist in reducing educational costs and make education and more accessible to a wider audience.

The Potential of E-education in African Campus-Based Universities

• Electronic-based education is rapidly becoming a worldwide growth area in higher education - one that presents opportunities and challenges to universities, colleges and schools worldwide.

• The emerging technologies are for example, allowing institutions to embark on e-education, electronic distant education (EDE) or e-learning in one form or another to extend their services to greater number of students and clients locally and internationally

• For example, although distance education through electronic media has been around in one form or another for a number of years, the availability of new educational technologies is opening up new opportunities for implementing EDE on a much larger scale in Africa than was possible before.

• EDE and other forms of e-education or e-learning could complement and supplement face-to-face campus-based education in African countries.

• The use of these technologies to service new ways of education, training, apprenticeship, and learning, as well as research collaborations, supervision and coordination, is beginning to make the implementation of e-education including EDE a realistic possibility in African countries

• The explosion of multimedia presentation technologies as well as electronic messaging and educational technologies in the last couples of years has transformed campus-based education and training in a number of countries including some Africa countries.

• More and more educational institutions, especially the campus-based universities and colleges world-wide are using multimedia presentation technologies for educational delivery on campus.

• The use of Web-enabled multimedia courseware within campus-based teaching and learning environment is rapidly transforming the landscape of educational delivery at all levels of the educational system in a number of countries.

• Electronic-based education and training especially EDE —increasingly broadening the options available for those who want to embark on distance education.

The explosive growth in network technologies and products and the rapid spread of the Internet, as well as the advances in multimedia and collaborative software environment is also fueling a new wave of better teaching, training and learning tools.

• The emerging educational delivery technologies to support teaching, learning and research on campus-based universities promised more than just an improvement in educational productivity.

• These technologies are certainly providing developing countries with new ways of education, training and learning.

• There are now many opportunities for Africans who want to embark on life long learning or want to update their skills to remain competitive in the ever changing environments of their profession.

The Opportunities for Harnessing the Emerging Technologies

• The emerging educational and multimedia delivery and presentation technologies, particularly in the area of electronic messaging to support electronic-based education and training is providing African countries with a window of opportunity to complement and supplement educational the limited educational delivery resources in the schools, colleges and universities.

• These technologies are making high quality electronic education easier to design, develop and deliver than was possible before. With these modern technologies, learning at a distance is no longer a problem as it once was.

• It is now possible that, irrespective of location, students can use these technologies, especially those for supporting electronic distant education to access educational resources from anywhere in the world.

• These emerging electronic messaging and educational technologies are providing Africa’s educational and training institutions with an opportunity to educate a greater number of people to support fuel and sustain economic and industrial development possible before.

• The availability of new and emerging educational technologies are opening up new opportunities for implementing e-education in Africa on a much larger scale than was possible before.

• The use of these technologies to service new ways of education, training, apprenticeship, and learning, as well as research collaborations, supervision and coordination, is beginning to make the implementation of e-education a realistic possibility in a number of countries including African countries

• The implementation of e-education in African universities, has the potential to assist in reducing educational costs and make education and training more accessible to a wider audience.

• The use of these technologies to support education delivery will also improve learner involvement and participation, enhance the quality of the learner-teacher relationship and boast learner achievement and confidence

• There is no doubt that the potential for e-education to complement and supplement campus-based higher education in Africa as in other countries is enormous.

Exploring the Challenges

• African universities do face a number e-education deployment challenges. It is therefore not surprising that very few African universities are using the emerging educational technologies to support education and learning for example to roll-out EDE.

• For example, the Scan-ICT survey on the deployment and the exploitation of ICTs to support teaching and learning in African universities shows that only 3% of all departments surveyed in Ghanaian universities are involved in EDE to compliment and supplement campus-based education. None of the Engineering, Computing and Computer Science departments surveyed as part of the Ghana Scan-ICT study are involved in any form of electronic distance education.

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Implementation of EDE

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The corresponding data for Ethiopia shows none of the public universities that participated in the Ethiopian study are involved in EDE, with only 5% of the private universities indicated rolling-out some EDE programs

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Involovement Electronic Distance Education in Higher Institutions

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• Limited Resources in the Face of Increasing Demands for Higher Education

– African Governments faced with fiscal constraints deriving from the need to control national public budgets have been making drastic cuts their social and educational budgets and this has further compounded the difficulties being faced by African universities struggling to meet unprecedented demand for places

– It is widely acknowledged that the pressure in most African countries to cut the education budget to balance the books is making it very difficult to meet their primary obligations in the educational sector, especially higher education

Cataloging Some of the Challenges to Rolling-Out E-education in African Universities

– Most African countries are experiencing, on one hand an increasing demand for limited higher education places and on the other less resources available to meet these demands.

– The higher educational system in most of these countries are in effect operating in what could be described as an education-resource impoverished environment, characterized by limited educational resources, in the face of increasing demands for educational services.

– Limited public funding for higher education is therefore one of the main constraints on the process of change and development in education in African countries. It is also a source of the current crisis facing campus-based universities and colleges in African countries.

– The financial crisis facing these institutions is resulting in excessive pressure on them to implement cost recovery programs and to search for new and alternative cost-effective ways of delivery and providing educational services

• Weak campus-based communications and computer network infrastructure

– A number of campus-based universities do not have the requisite campus-backbone network and organizational and departmental networks to support online campus-based and electronic distance education programme delivery.

– Although the situation is charging compare to the 90’s with some of the campuses mobilizing resources to invest in their communications and network infrastructure

– The majority of African university campuses are still far from having the requisite communications infrastructure to support a critical mass of e-learning activities on campus

• Limited computer resources to support campus-wide programme delivery and administration

– The faculty and students of most African universities still lack wide-spread access to computer resources. The computer-to-faculty ratio could be as low as 1:10+ (one computer 10 faculty members) in some universities; with the computer-to-students ratio as low as 1:100 or more in some the large campus-based universities in Africa.

– Without adequate access to computer resources there is very little chance of e-education and e-learning kicking-off in the majority of African universities

• Low-level of Internet access and limited bandwidth of access

– Although all African countries now have access to the Internet with access mainly concentrated in urban areas, in particular in the capital and big cities, most African universities are still struggling with improving access and making the Internet affordable for their faculty and students.

– Apart from problems of limited bandwidth and the unreliability of access, very few African universities provide free access to the Internet for their faculty and students.

– Without reasonably affordable access to the Internet and improvements in bandwidth and the spread of access, most Africa universities will continue to struggle to introduce e-education and learning on their campuses

• Referring to the Scan-ICT study, of all the university departments surveyed in the Ghana study only 2% indicated that they have free access to the Internet, in other words, some other agency pay for the cost of access. The corresponding figure of Engineering, Computing and Computer Science departments is 33%.

• Of all the departments surveyed within the universities, a high 81% (Ghana Universities), 58% (Ethiopia Universities) indicated that they meet the cost of their Internet access from their own resources, while 17% (in the Ghana case) and 3.2% in the case of Ethiopia) reported that they meet part of the cost.

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• Limited On-Campus Technical Expertise and Know-how to develop, administer and deliver courseware within a e-education environment

– Although a reasonable proportion of the faculty in most African universities are computer literate, the majority are yet to acquire the requisite expertise and know-how to develop and deliver courseware and other instructional resources in an online/e-education delivery environment.

– The majority of African universities are yet to invest in the training their faculty in developing and delivery courseware-based teaching and learning materials.

– Furthermore not many universities in Africa have special units or centers with adequate expertise for developing, delivery and administering e-learning programs to supplement or compliment traditional face-to-face programs

– Without adequate investment in the requisite expertise and know-how, most African universities will not be able to harness the emerging educational technologies and systems to support education and learning on campus and beyond

• Apathy to change, resistance to change, lack or motivation or incentive to change– Despite the increasing popularity of the Internet and

other emerging educational technologies for supporting e-learning a number of African universities are still battling with resistant to change by their faculty, staff and students

– In particular faculty in a number of these universities for various reasons (lack of incentive, motivation etc) are slow to embrace technology to support teaching and program delivery

– The bulk of the faculty in a number of African universities still deliver their courses in the traditional mode using chalk and blackboard with just few venturing into using PowerPoint or other presentation tools to deliver courses.

– Assignments are still given on paper or blackboard without using the delivery infrastructure of the Internet or campus-based Intranet where it exist.

– Course descriptions, schedules and handouts are still given to students in print format

– Student grades are still posted on campus notice boards rather than being sent to them electronically as done in a typical e-learning program delivery environment

– The resistance to change no doubt poses a major challenge to the roll-out of e-education programs in African universities

Concluding on Prospects for the Future• There is no doubt that African universities do face a number of

challenges and constraints in harnessing the emerging technologies to support their educational delivery and research and other activities.

• These challenges will need to addressed if African campus-based traditional universities are to avail of the educational delivery and enhancement opportunities that these new and emerging technologies are offers.

• It is without doubt that the emerging educational technologies, to support electronic-based education and training is providing a window of opportunity for Africa’s higher educational institutions to supplement and compliment their limited educational and training resources as well as make it possible for them to provide high quality education cost-effectively to a greater number of people than was possible before.

• E-education can make quality education resources available to African universities operating in under-resourced environments and provide an opportunity for the development of new courses and academics programs

The Threat ..of Not Acting • There is no doubt that e-education, EDE, virtual universities and

academies is the future of higher education world-wide.

• Campus-based universities world-wide especially in the developed world are creating their virtual campuses to not only supplement and support their campus-based education but also to capture the multi-million dollar online degree market.

• There is a serious threat to the revenue base and the sustainability of the already impoverish Africa universities if they don’t act and be part of the EDE revolution of higher education provision.

• There is that possibility that even their student base (their revenue

source) can be eroded if they fail they act.

• The dangers of being left behind is high and the cost of playing a catching-up game when coming from behind will be high and exorbitant for the already under-resourced African Universities.

THEDIGITALDIVIDERIVER

THISSIDE

THEOTHERSIDE

Getting to the Other Side

In the Final Analysis…it is all about getting African Universities to the other-side of the Digital Divide River that is separting them from the more technology-enabled Universities of the World

Avoiding the Risk of Being Left Behind• Time is a critical factor in today’s technology-

driven eduction development and delivery environment.

• It is not only about crossing the digital river, but also a question of how fast one crosses it in relation to other universities in other regions of the world

 • The failure of African universities to speed up

their e-education and learning process, will make it difficult for them to achieve their goal to provide quality and affordable higher education to a wider section of their population

• In today’s information age, catching-up will be extremely difficult and costly for African universities who failed to move fast enough to roll-out e-education and learning in their campus-based environment and beyond