By Mabinty M. Kamara
Minister of Technical and Higher Education, Professor Aiah Kpakima, has said that lecturers of colleges and universities must embrace digitalization in the delivery of their lectures or quit.
He said there could be no place in the education system for any lecturer who didn’t delivery his lecture notes online.
“This is not a social matter. If you are not able to put your lecture note online, you don’t belong here,” Prof. Kpakima said, noting that any lecturer who didn’t live up to expectation would have their salary stopped immediately.
The minister added that he would ensure everyone adhered to the new directive by personally monitoring their performance.
“From now onwards, I will be monitoring you. I know who is teaching what. So don’t be surprised to see me at the back of your class,” he said.
Prof. Kpakima made the statement during presentation of two prototypes of homemade ventilators and alcohol based hand sanitizers. The innovations were done by students and lecturers of the University of Sierra Leone (USL).
Schools have been shut down due to restrictive measures imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. And concerned about the implication of the indefinite closure on the syllabus, university and college authorities have been implementing distance learning programmes with the use of new technological tools.
The USL has taken the lead. But the experience hasn’t been smooth for both the lecturers and the students.
Among the concerns of the lecturers is that the portal created by the university to share lecture notes is not effective. They also have issues with access to internet connectivity, as do their students.
Fourah Bay College (FBC) student, Abdul Karim Sankoh, says the Minister’s statement suggested that he was out of touch with the reality on the ground at the learning institutions.
Sanko said the ongoing e-learning process at FBC is a sham because even the portal created by the university, if they are able to access it all, there is hardly anything there for them.
“Before calling on lecturers to send their notes online, you first of all need to consider how many students have access to effective internet facility and the required equipment like android phones and computers and how many can subscribe to the internet facility, because it is something very expensive especially so when most of the students are in the provinces,” he said.
Sanko also cited limitations created by erratic power supply.
“If you missed out on a lesson for a day, by the time you are back, you would have missed out a lot and how could you catch up on it,” he said.
Dr. Tonya Musa, Communication and Information Director of USL, told Politico that the statement by the minister was one of policy which they as a management considered appropriate, noting that they expected nothing less from the lecturers.
“So we are encouraging our staff members to digitalize their notes, going further, we want to create the enabling facility for them to do so,” he said.
Musa stressed that getting lecture notes online is not limited to the universal portal created by the university.
“The internet has two principal features, email and the website, so even sharing the notes via email is part of the online and also getting the notes on the portal, which is our repository, is part of getting the note online. But more or less, the idea is adding virtual learning to the existing system. Post COVID we are going to create what is called the Learning Management system, which will take care of our digital learning system,” he said.
The USL spokesman went on to say that the students were prepared to go digital because most of them have smart phones, laptops or Ipad. He said the only difficulty they face is internet access.
And according to the lecturers, access to internet is key in this process, as the cost is borne by them, rather than the college. They also say not all the studetns have access to devices to access the online lectures, contrary to Mr Musa’s assertion.
Many of the students are in the provinces and have been affected by the effects of the Covid-19 lock down. This has led to delay in submission of assignments, among others.
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