With the sudden shift away from the classroom due to covid-19 breakout, the government of Uganda has decided to issue online learning system guidelines to ensure continuity of Education programmes in the country.
The State Minister for Higher Education, Dr Chrysostom Muyingo, early this week asked all education institutions to embrace e-learning to support continuity in teaching and learning after all institutions were closed three months ago following coronavirus outbreak.
He also revealed that government was finalising digital learning guidelines to facilitate the current homeschooling programme.
“We are trying to encourage all our institutions to embrace online learning. As government, we are going to make sure facilities are available to as many Ugandans as possible. You are aware of the difficulties we have been having. Not every Ugandan has access to the internet, laptop and the skills to manipulate the facilities. We are trying to make sure these facilities are accessible and skills passed on,” Dr Muyingo said on Wednesday while releasing the 2019 Uganda Business and Technical Examinations Board (UBTEB) results.
The ministry of Education-Business Technical Vocational Education and Training (BTVET) commissioner, Dr Safinah Museene, observed that some of the institutions were already using a blended approach to conduct teaching where videos demonstrating an activity are posted on the WhatsApp groups for illustration for students currently at home.
“After appreciating that Covid-19 is not going tomorrow, we need to plan another mechanism of training. We are going digitalisation. We are developing a digital agenda for education. Once this is done, it will help us to map out how to go forward. We now have meetings online and lessons have started taking place on zoom,” Dr Museene said.
On the other hand, a good number of schools such as Kampala Parents School (KPS) have already embraced the online classes system.
Daphine Kato, Principal of KPS recently asserted that they opted to invest heavily in e-learning infrastructure to ensure that learners are kept in check.
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