Friday, 1 November 2013

Is GTUC ready for online learning?

Online learning is a form of distance education where courses are delivered over the Internet and can be accessed from a computer with a web browser. Ghana telecom university currently called Ghana technology University college (GTUC) , a private university in Ghana, west of Africa establish the Centre for Online Learning and Teaching in December 2012 four years down the line of its existence.  The centre was mandated to create an online learning platform for students.
However ,the question remains if GTUC is indeed ready for this move. This propelled my writhing of this article.
First and foremost GTUC is currently Six years old, although it has carved a name for itself as Africans best university that trains telecom engineers, this achievements were chalked through the traditional classroom delivery. Isn't it indeed early for GTUC too implement a full, and I repeat full migration from the traditional system to the online system.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) started migration to the online MITx moodle in 2007 with an initial implementation from one department to another, here there was no full migration as GTUC has done. If MIT an institution that is over 100 years could could take time to gradually migrate students to his moodle, I think GTUC should also reconsider its online policy implementation.

To add to that, it should be know that the introduction of online education is to create lower fees and maybe perhaps education at no cost to make it accessible by all both rich and poor. I believe GTUC has taken a leading step in implementing a full online learning moodle through the use of open softwares like webGuru etc,to facilitate such initiatives , however the has been no substantial change with regard to fees reduction since the implementation of this online learning. If the sole purpose of online learning- lower fees or no cost- is at stake , then I believe that GTUC is not fully ready for this initiative .
In a nutshell, GTUC has become a model that other universities are mimicking in terms of its technological approach to problem solving, however , it's should be noted that project become more feasible if there is efficient planning and implementation.

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