Imagine a student sitting in a classroom at Bukabooli Secondary School in Mayuge district following a mathematics lesson going on in another classroom at St Mary’s College Kisubi (SMACK). This is whats UCC’s recently announced eLearning project is all about, the ability to connect and standardize education in Uganda to enable equal transfer of knowledge.
Conceived by the Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF), the Holistic eLearning Project (HeLP) is a game-changing ICT tool that seeks to enhance collaboration and knowledge sharing among schools.
Through eLearning Project , schools are supported by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) to build the necessary capacity to provide better quality teaching and learning, thereby contributing to the attaining of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which is about ensuring “inclusive and equitable quality education”, and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.
According to UCC’s blog, the eLearning project is being piloted in four schools; Gayaza High School, St. Mary’s College Kisubi, Nabisunsa Girls’ School and Busoga College Mwiri.
The commission says that the quartet was selected on the basis of earlier eLearning projects they have been involved in, readiness and willingness to experiment with the new model of learning, and their relatively well-established ICT infrastructure.
Among other outcomes, the eLearning project expects to narrow the urban-rural disparity in terms of access to quality teaching and learning.
“We want a situation whereby a good Mathematics teacher at St. Mary’s College Kisubi is giving a lesson and [students in] some 100 rural schools in Karamoja are able to follow this lesson. That is the pilot we are doing,” said Mr Simon Bugaba, the UCC head of regional offices, during a workshop on the eLearning project for headteachers at Kololo SS in Kampala on 08 August 2019.
The eLearning Project will be rolled out to other schools after the pilot phase, giving preference to those that will have utilized the Internet connectivity given to them, as well as those with a budget line for the sustainability of the connection.
