UAC is turning to digitalisation as a means to break out of the 'amphi' curse: lecture halls where hundreds of students are packed to follow chalk-and-blackboard teaching under poor audio-visual conditions – and from where hundreds more are left out due to the scarcity of infrastructures. With 100,000 registered students, an average teacher/students ratio of 1/98 and limited government resources, UAC must innovate drastically – or perish. This is the plight of all universities in Africa. Open and online education (OOE), whether home-grown or adapted from existing sources, appears to be a viable solution to improve quality while at the same time widening access to a rapidly increasing student population.
"With 100,000 registered students, an average teacher/ students ratio of 1/98 and limited government resources, UAC must innovate drastically – or perish"
What does a digital course look like at UAC? Imagine a PowerPoint presentation, with an oral explanation from your teacher, who appears in a small window in the bottom-right corner of your screen. Nothing fancy, only the essential, and home-produced to respond to local needs. So far UAC has produced 52 digital courses. Through the Dutch-funded NICHE programme managed by EP-Nuffic, UAC will be able to intensify its efforts and roll out its e-learning expertise to its 26 faculties and schools.
UAC has a strong OOE vision and receives reinforcements from several partners, in addition to EP-Nuffic:
With UNESCO and the African Union's initiative African Virtual Campus, UAC produces multimedia resources and documentation. With help from the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, it holds training sessions for its teachers to help them put their courses online. So far, 100 out of 900 teachers have been trained. 200 computers have been acquired with support from the West African Economic and Monetary Union. The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne offers technical assistance to help UAC set up its local version of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – currently only for use on campus due to limited Internet bandwidth. Private students may take courses in ICT and in Business English in a tele-education centre with its own generator. The courses are offered in real-time by various partners in India. And from next year, UAC students will also have access to open, online courses in Applied Computer Science through the African Virtual University, financed by the African Development Bank.
To find our more, please visit http://www.nuffic.nl/en