By; MATTHEW UKACHUNWA, Lagos
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been recommended as a solution to the decadence that bedevils higher education in Nigeria and other sub-Sahara Africa countries.
“Hundreds of university students in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa and other African countries took to the streets last year (2016) to protest against high tuition fees, lack of equal access to education and inferior learning environments at their learning institutions,” a report published in Africa Renewal, a United Nations (UN) journal, stated.
The clashes, which disrupted the universities’ academic calendars, highlighted the harsh conditions students face on the continent, the report said.
Access to higher education in sub-Saharan Africa is lower than the average by at least 20 per cent, according to Africa-America Institute (AAI), a US-based organization that seeks to foster relations between Africa and the United States through higher education.
To put it into perspective, only about six per cent of young people in sub-Saharan Africa are enrolled in higher education institutions, according to 2015 report of AAI.”The introduction of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) may, however, provide a lifeline for African students,” the report declared.
Although Africa still has grounds to make up, a 2016 study by the Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA) found that the hiughest completion rates of MOOCs are in developing countries.
TASCHA is a US-based network of technology researchers at the University of Washington.
The study observed that low- and middle-income populations make up 80 per cent MOOCs users and 82 per cent of South African participants are 30 years or younger.
Also, a 2015 survey by Coursera, a prominent MOOCs platform, found that as a result of taking online courses, an overwhelming 87 per cent of participants reported career benefits, with 33 per cent mentioning tangible career benefits.
“Usually, the feedback we receive is very positive. Some people told us that their lives had changed, thanks to MOOCs,” said Mr Carmina Paolo De Salvo, an instructor for a 2016 MOOCs focusing on agricultural policies produced by the Inter-American Development Bank on edX, an online learning platform.
As noted by the report, online education or e-learning is not new to Africa. It mentioned Nigeria, Mauritius, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe among the African countries that have embraced the e-learning movement using various online instruction methods.
It explained that “while traditional e-learning makes tertiary education more accessible, it can still be limiting due to high fees, and because courses are only open at specific times of the year.
“As a result, students who intend to pursue specialized and flexible post-graduate education are now turning to open online courses,” the report stressed.
