Case Study

Kenya

 University of Nairobi 

Distance Education Teachers’ Programme

Prepared by:   J  . O. Odumbe

Brief description of the programme

The College of Education and External Studies distance education teachers’ programmes started in 1967 with primary teachers’ certificate courses and later, in 1986, a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree programme was introduced, which eventually replaced the certificate programmes. In 1996, the Post-Graduate Diploma in Education (pgde) was introduced. 

Currently the college operates a dual mode programme. The admission to the bachelor’s programme is by qualification in the national examinations, while admission to the diploma programme is on the basis of a recognised first degree with at least two teaching subjects. The bachelor’s programme takes a minimum of six years, while the diploma programme takes two years. Both programmes are offered by the Department of Educational Studies in the Faculty of External Studies.

The learning system uses specially developed print materials as the main medium of instruction, supported by audio cassettes, audio teleconferencing, and limited face-to-face tutorials of up to two weeks’ duration, conducted three times in each academic year. The assessment in these programmes is continual through home written and timed tests as well as end-of-year examinations.

Problems encountered

Planning and managing distance education

•       Justifying regulations that provide for flexibility to students.

•       Justifying payments for the services rendered by the staff from the internal departments to the Department of Education Studies.

Implementing quality assurance

•       Allowing sufficient time to field test materials before production for students.

•       Budgeting for the cost of transporting university staff for face-to-face tuition to remote study centres instead of using local staff, who are not well received by students.

Using and integrating media in distance education

•       Training students to use each medium appropriately for the purpose it is intended.

•       Allowing increased costs to the students and the institution.

Instructional design and production

•       Overriding the initial reluctance of writers to accept and see the need for developing materials in the distance education format of presentation, which they felt was too much ‘spoon feeding’.

•       Providing resources and time to develop all the materials within the workshop setting, especially for undergraduate and post-graduate materials that need more reference and consultation of sources.

•       Encouraging writers to work within the deadlines, especially when there is no lead time.

Learner support systems

•       Identifying and developing staff with the right skills, approaches, and attitudes to provide adequate counselling and tutorial services at the study centres.

•       Standardising the distribution of infrastructure and learning resources, variations of which create disparity and difficulty to students.

•       Providing time and opportunity for adequate individual attention.

The most important issue: Providing guidance and face-to-face tutorial services

These learner support issues are closely connected to quality assurance issues. Apart from helping in the learning process, learner support services also reduce isolation, and sustain or create motivation and confidence to students.

To provide the decentralised tutorial services that play a major role in learner support, the faculty identified tutors from the teacher colleges and universities and organised training for them on tutoring in the distance education system.

Enough tutors in each subject were found for all 10 study centres in Kenya. Out of two one-week training sessions conducted for the tutors, a tutors’ handbook was developed and made available to all the tutors. It became a useful guide for briefing new tutors who joined later to replace drop-outs.

When the actual tutoring started, some students were tutored by the university’s course lecturers while others were tutored by college tutors. In some subjects the students felt that those being tutored by course lecturers were advantaged. The feeling became so strong that eventually course lecturers and writers were taken around to each study centre in turn, but this approach became too expensive for the institution and too demanding for individual lecturers.

The regional tutorials were discontinued and instead the residential schools were intensified. Regional tutorials were always presented by course lecturers and have been acceptable to students, who often travel long distances to attend and expect a satisfactory learning opportunity.

For general counselling, the faculty uses resident lecturers who are stationed at six extramural centres in the country. However, these centres do not serve low population density and remote parts of the country; plans are underway to increase the distribution of extramural centres to cover most of the country.

A second move which has been undertaken to provide constant support is by installing audio teleconferencing with eight receiving stations. This technology enables the use of course lecturers throughout the country without strain on their time. This arrangement was made possible by assistance from The Commonwealth of Learning (col), but budgetary arrangements have been inadequate to sustain it.