Twelve students have been suspended from Makerere University for getting involved in a strike at the institutional campus of the University. The university authorities have suspended students who went on a strike to criticize the University’s decision to continue with the e-learning even after the COVID protocols have been relaxed in the nation.
While considering the decision to suspend students opposing the university decision, vice-chancellor ‘Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe’ stated that the University is not obliged to continue full face to face learning in classes. E-learning is part and parcel of the University’s modes Operandi.
Makerere University, situated in Kampala in Uganda and is considered the largest and oldest University of higher learning, was first established as a technical school in 1992. It became an independent national university in 1970.
Why Online education was considered as a
According to a few reports, the emergency substitute of traditional classrooms with virtual ones should “be considered as a sort of ‘bypass’ button’” for the usual snail’s pace of educational change. After all, E-learning is preferable as it allows students “students to attain greater mark & not be limited by a predetermined set of circumstances.”
Online education, earlier considered a “hobby,” could be the silver bullet that rescues higher ed from the financial ravages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Online is “the future of learning,” The traditional model” of a classroom, is already done with. It’s time to “reconsider” education with computers and laptops “at the forefront.” While both deal with K-12, the bid to replace “all these buildings, all these physical classrooms” with virtual spaces applies equally well to higher education.
As per one of the students, she felt like she was unable to attain 10 % of the daily classes. Whereas another one stated, “I haven’t learned anything since we went online.” “It seemed too easy,” wrote a third. “I did not feel challenged as I had been in the first half of the semester, and It was feeling like the quality of learning had capsized.” “I watched the lectures posted, but I wasn’t learning the material,” wrote another. All told, moving online caused “a profound sense of loss.”
Taking online classes also means that the distractions of the web are right before their eyes. “The major benefit of in-class learning is that the classroom leaves out distractions,” writes one student, but now, “I have the biggest source of gaming, shopping and socializing right in my face.”
