UG moves to address constraints of online education in local context

May 02, 2020 News

– Campus reopening rescheduled for June 1

The University of Guyana (UG) has moved to address the constraints of online education in the local context.

The University of Guyana is looking to address constraints of online education in local context

In a statement issued yesterday, UG noted that its administration has taken into consideration the challenges presented to some students seeking to access lectures online.
According to the release, UG continues, like most other tertiary institutions in the world, to keep working and educating the nation’s people despite the challenges presented by COVID-19.
Given the circumstances of the global pandemic, UG had anticipated early on that the novel coronavirus (CoV19) might have had a long recovery tail.
As such, the institution said in the statement that it recognised that the possibility of an extended “safe mode” period and is expected to return to physical campus by a tentative date of June 1, 2020.
At the interim, it was determined that UG would do as much as it could to keep working, especially for students graduating this year.
“Graduation may still be possible for final year students in most disciplines in December 2020 and /or January 2021. All matters for these final year students are to be prioritized to enable their graduation,” UG said in the statement.
As the situation unfolds, the University continued with variable success to employ data driven adaptation measures to keep its focus and to perform in emergency mode.
The University had considered its options and decided to engage several stakeholders, including faculty, staff, students, local and international partners as well as local businesses, on the way forward.
As such, UG has been rolling out an array of emergency policy measures and technology driven applications, which include zero-rated data use for any staff or student using a site with a UOG URL.
The initiative was made possible due to negotiations with local telecoms giant, GTT.
As a consequence, “UG staff and students do not pay now for going online using UG dedicated systems to learn,” the statement said.
Among the list of measures, was for (emergency) response email fixug@uog.edu.gy for students and lecturers to report issues not captured in the questionnaire, which needs to be addressed.
Additionally, UG introduced several flexible pathways for students struggling in these circumstances to manage academic and other challenges. The university has also deferred payments in response to requests from students.
According to the information, despite these measures, UG is aware that about 25% of their students will not be able to immediately respond well to an online environment. These fixes are currently being addressed but will take a few weeks to be sorted.
However, the University maintains that despite being totally unprepared for the pandemic, and though the challenges are real and stubborn in some cases, they are not insurmountable and UG has not stopped functioning for one single day.
Emergency mobile numbers for each department (50 in total) can be found on the University’s website uog.ed.gy and all email addresses remain functional and the Campus is doing business between 10am and 2pm daily.

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