UG’s Online Degree programme – fulfilling a Presidential request

Oct 05, 2014 News

Premised on a call by President Donald Ramotar to ensure that there is no restriction to the access of education in

Director of the Programme, Abraham Ogowewo

Guyana, the University of Guyana (UG) earlier this year made an ambitious move to begin offering an online degree programme.
The programme, which is set to commence this academic year, is being dubbed an ‘Online Degree Open Education Programme’. And several individuals desirous of being a part of it were during the past week engaged in a three-day orientation session which was overseen by Director of the Programme, Mr Abraham Ogowewo.
Speaking to this publication recently, Ogowewo recalled how the President himself made the initial move by requesting of the local university to make education available to every corner of the country.
The Nigeria-born Ogowewo had previously lectured in the Faculty of Education and Humanities for over a decade before taking up headship of the online programme at the start of the year. He disclosed that it was in January of this year that organising efforts commenced towards the realisation of the highly recommended venture.
And according to him, the plan was to introduce a programme that was unlike any other that was ever offered by the University, including that offered by the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE).
“Here we are concerned with having persons from any part in Guyana being able to enrol in the University of Guyana, to do a degree without (being) resident here…As long as you have internet you can communicate with tutors and earn a degree; you don’t need to come to the university, the university comes to you,” Ogowewo intimated.
“When you enrol in a programme like this you still maintain your social responsibilities, you still keep your job, since you are able to read at times that are convenient to you. You don’t need to tax yourself too much to say I have to be at the campus to get a university degree,” said the Director.
Currently the online programmes being offered amount to a total of four including: the Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, Bachelor of Science in Criminology and Psychological Studies, Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Technology and Bachelor of Science in Environmental Management and Technology. And according to Ogowewo, only persons who meet the normal entry requirements for the University will be allowed to access the programmes.
He however noted that “although this is what we are using now, the concept of open education programmes online is a little bit different…we have not gotten there but we will get there. Qualifications should not really be a barrier. People should be able to benefit from the programme in an open system which provides a pathway whereby irrespective of where that person is, he or she can come and do certain courses and take off from there.”
He therefore explained that the future of the programme is likely to see persons who are not aptly qualified being accepted for the various online courses, but will be expected to take advantage of access courses that can help take them to get to where they need to be in terms of qualifications.
The programmes are expected to span a period of four years, Ogowewo said, as he disclosed that it is being done in collaboration with the Open University of the United Kingdom, which has close to 46 years of world experience in open education.
Moreover, the materials that will be used to offer the online programmes here are in fact “world class materials…they are content that are marketable everywhere in the world,” the Director stressed.

Students during an orientation session at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus last week

As such, he noted that “it is not going to be an issue that you are learning on your own or what is the quality of the education; quality assurance is built into the system.”
The expectation of such a strategic move, he noted, is that education could become available to the entire nation.
“Remember the present system of using the face-to-face here (at UG) you only have Regions Four, Six and a few others. So what happens to Lethem? What happens to other areas? So the idea is to reach more; let everybody benefit from the available education.”
The programme, according to the Director, too, is one that is designed to considerably support the Ministry of Education, in light of the fact that there have been some challenges faced in the teaching of Mathematics. Moreover, there has been the need for more graduates to be produced to teach this subject area, thereby putting the education system in a better position.
According to Ogowewo, English has also been another area that the sector has been having challenges with, which is evident particularly at the secondary level of learning.
“If we have graduate teachers in those subjects then we are sure of having better performances at the secondary schools…so from the Ministry’s point of view, we are also using this programme (online degree) to develop human capacity in terms of teacher education that will enable the secondary school system to be more effective than what it is,” he continued.
He insisted that since access to good quality education is the key to resources in any country, “the person who is not educated is disenfranchised, because you cannot take advantage of the labour market; you cannot do all those things that others are doing.”
The online programmes will attract a cost of about $250,000 per year, but according to Ogowewo, students will be able to pay half in advance and the other half later, or they can access loans from the Ministry of Finance’s Student Loan Agency.
Accepted students are each furnished with a tablet loaded with the Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) software – an open source learning platform, which according to Ogowewo, is very manageable. Each programme offered has a Coordinator who is tasked with crafting a study calendar which determines how many hours it will take to complete specific courses, the timeframe in which assignments must be submitted digitally, among other details of the programmes. Throughout the programmes, students will be able to liaise via the internet (email and discussions) with tutors.
Added to this, students will be able to meet with a regional coordinator at least once monthly at a specified location to discuss the progress of the programme. Already some 69 persons from various regions have registered for the online degree.