Case Study

Kenya

 University of Nairobi 

Prepared by:   Judith W. Kamau

Brief description of the programme

The External Degree Programme of the University of Nairobi is conducted in the Faculty of External Studies, College of Education and External Studies.

The establishment of the External Degree Programme of the University of Nairobi in 1986 followed two feasibility studies in 1976 and 1983, which established the need and relevance of such a programme in Kenya. The External Degree Programme was set up to upgrade both professional and academic qualifications of secondary school teachers who had trained to teach the first two classes of secondary school but who, due to a shortage of staff, found themselves teaching O level and A level classes in the secondary school curriculum. Through distance education these teachers would receive in-service training without leaving their families and as they continued to perform their duties. Of the 600 candidates who were selected and admitted to the programme from more than 3,000 applicants, 504 registered for different subjects in the External Bachelor of Education (Arts) programme.

Problems encountered

Planning and managing distance education

The university with its six colleges is a dual mode institution. The fact that the External Degree Programme operates within a dual mode system has its own inherent problems. The programme has a core of academic staff 

This core staff, comprised of subject experts, editor, radio and audio lecturer, and a graphic artist, identify, train, and supervise part-time staff, who are engaged to write, review, and edit instructional materials. The radio and audio lecturer, editor, graphic artist, and printer are in charge of the production and distribution of instructional materials under the supervision of the chair of the Department of External Degrees and the dean of the Faculty of External Studies. Both the chair and the dean answer to the principal of the college, the Deputy Vice-Chancellors, and the Vice-Chancellor, in that hierarchy.

The department and its core staff perform duties similar to those of a publishing house. The subject co-ordinators provide academic guidance and counselling to students during residential sessions and also by correspondence. Each subject co-ordinator handles part-time staff in a whole subject area (for example, history), which constitutes a department of its own in the conventional internal programmes of the university. In this arrangement, part-time staff are paid for their services on a piece work basis. 

The costs of running the programme are met from government subsidy, student fees (the programmes run on a cost recovery basis), and from the sale of materials to other institutions such as the Open University of Tanzania; Makerere University, Uganda; and the University of Zimbabwe.

The learning system of the External Degree Programme has been mainly the print materials supported by audio and video cassettes, face-to-face tutorials, and supervised teaching practice, with students studying specially developed print materials in each subject. During the four residential sessions held at the University of Nairobi each year in August, November, January, and April, during school holidays and at the six regional study centres which are spread in six major towns, writers and subject specialists introduce course materials to students, revise course content, and mark assignments and give timed tests that form part of student assessment as provided for in the regulations.

The regional study centres are managed by resident lecturers who are core staff within the External Degree Programme.

Management challenges

The management of the External Degree Programme within a dual mode institution has presented a major challenge.

To start with, the students are external. Where choices must be made, the needs of internal students come first and those of external students come second. This problem is particularly common in the sharing of resources. If the timetable of internal programmes is slightly interrupted, for example, then the residential sessions for external students, which are held at the university where accommodation facilities and tutors are based, must be rescheduled. These interruptions sometimes mean re-scheduling supervised tests and examination schedules, causing frustration to students and part-time staff.

The distance education mode of delivery is not quite understood by senior management. The programme managers on the ground have often found it difficult to explain and justify, for example, expending tuition revenues on the production and reproduction (or reprinting and dubbing) of study materials because the term ‘tuition’ has a different meaning in the conventional mode.

When the programme started in 1986, students attended regional field tutorials once a month, twelve months a year, in addition to three residential sessions at the University of Nairobi. Although very popular with students, the field tutorials were discontinued in 1990 due to the high costs of paying the field tutors and the accompanying supervision constraints due to limited core staff. However, the hours from the field tutorials were recouped into the residential sessions so that students still have the same number of tutor contact hours per subject. 

While senior management are convinced about the value of frequent student–tutor physical contact, it is difficult to raise funds to pay for the monthly accommodation and transport bills field tutors incur.

Instructional design and production for distance education

Materials development has been another problem area. When the programme was launched in August 1986, only two units (booklets) in Education were written and ready to go to students in a 10-subject External Degree Programme. Consequently, the other materials were developed as students waited, causing frustration to many. By the time students were ready for their first-year examinations in 1988 only 388 out of the registered 504 students sat for their exams. By 1990 the programme had only 260 regular students who went on to graduate in 1994. 

This high drop-out rate was partly due to a lack of study materials to maintain and sustain student motivation and progress through the programme because students lacked credibility about the sustainability of the programme. Also, materials development was delayed due to low motivation on the part of writers, reviewers, and editors, which resulted from delayed payment for work completed because of the long part-time claims scrutinisation process by the finance department.

After the claims were approved for payment the amount due was subjected to super scale taxation as required by law, leaving the part-time staff dissatisfied with the very small sum of money earned from writing course materials. As a result, the External Degree Programme lost many good and trained part-time staff, thus prolonging the already protracted materials development process.

Possible solutions 

Problem	Suggested Solution
External Degree Programme in a dual mode institution	There is need for some degree of autonomy for the progress of the programme.         Management is often too conservative, leaning more towards the conventional mode. They should be sensitised about the needs of external students.         Measures of full-time students equivalent contact hours should be based on the distance mode requirements rather than on on-campus procedures that do not interface with a distance education programme.
Materials development	There is no need for lead time to develop or acquire ready to use course materials.         A programme that starts with limited study material should wait for the materials to roll off the press before accepting students.
Processing of part-time claims	To avoid delays, the External Degree Programme requires its own budget to process part-time claims and to procure printing and other materials required for the production of study materials. Of course, this budget would be subject to both internal and external audit as is the rest of the university.
Learner support services	Support services are a vital link between students and the institution providing the programme.         Field tutorials should not be substituted with anything else as they provide the maintenance function for learners who are isolated from the providing institution, their tutors, and from fellow learners.         Logistics for implementation costs, who will bear them, and the availability of physical facilities and field tutors should be planned well in advance in order to limit drawbacks after the programme is launched.         However, the programme has now come of age and the regional centres are now available. The arrangements on the ground seem to satisfy the needs of the students and programme providers adequately.

Conclusion

The External Degree Programme has been a real eye opener. Following successful completion and graduation of the first cohort of 260 students in December 1994, a second cohort of 1,500 students enrolled in August 1995 and the drop-out rate is negligible because most of the study materials required in the Bachelor of Education (Arts) course are now readily available. 

Study materials from this programme have helped expand education frontiers through distance education to other countries and other institutions in Kenya. In time there has been a cost benefit accrued from the study materials as different cohorts of students use the materials, thus reducing the unit costs substantially.