The Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Media at the School of Education, Makerere University is working on a program called E-Learning and Teacher Education (ELATE) which develops material for secondary school teachers and teacher trainees.
The Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Media at the School of Education, Makerere University is working on a program called E-Learning and Teacher Education (ELATE) which develops material for secondary school teachers and teacher trainees.
The program develops material like syllabi, examination papers, schemes of work, lesson plans, exemplary class work activities, and valuable advice and guidance which it provides on its website http://ugandaschoolresources.org/. Other materials are put on CD-ROM as well as on printed paper, to give an alternative to those who can not access the internet.
“We supplied over 800 CD-ROMs in 2008 to secondary schools within Uganda,” said the director of the program, Dr. Christopher Mugimu, adding that, “Our website was visited by more than 240,000 people in 2009.”
The program aims at achieving a number of objectives which include; use of E-delivery to provide teaching materials to trainee and practicing teachers; train a body of teacher trainers in courseware design that harnesses E-delivery possibilities; and stimulate an active research program to support learning and teacher education in Uganda.
Dr. Mugimu said that the program is designed in form of phases. The first phase ran from 2007 up to February 2009 and it focused on exploiting E-learning possibilities to deliver reading materials to teacher trainees. The second phase started in the same month under the name JOB-MARK INITIATIVE. It based itself on job-related skills with attributes like communication, punctuality, reflection and self learning, and its major focus was on entrepreneurship as a subject.
The third phase started in August 2010 to succeed the JOB-MARK INITIATIVE which ended in April 2010 and it will focus on the feedback got from those people who have been using the materials. “We will be going to the field to interview these people and see how the materials have helped them” added Dr. Mugimu.
He observed that secondary school curriculum is designed in a way that each subject is taught in isolation from others.
“So, in our program, we are designing a curriculum which will enable a student of biology or mathematics to have skills in arts subjects like entrepreneurship so as to manage their medical units if they become doctors.” He said.
The ELATE team comprises a strong entrepreneurship team, which includes: Members of the national entrepreneurship curriculum design and examination team; authors of new text books; a small enterprise advisor; teacher trainers from universities and practicing entrepreneurs.
The School of Education partners with the Open University, UK in this ELATE venture. It is funded by the England-African Partnerships in higher education (EAP) scheme which, is administered by the British council .
Many secondary school teachers including those outside Uganda have benefited from ELATE. A report on the program’s website http://ugandaschoolresources.org/ shows that teachers from Kenya, Malawi, Togo, Sierra Leone, Netherlands and The UK among others have showed their appreciation for the program.
Asked when the program would end, Dr. Mugimu reassured that the coordinators intend to carry on until program objectives were fulfilled. “We can not afford to end such a fruitful program very soon” he added jokingly.
Article by Aston Mubangizi
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