More than six months since the formation of the committee mandated to spearhead the establishment of the Open University of Kenya, the long awaited institution is yet to be launched.
Kenyans had anticipated that the university, set to revolutionize higher education and reduce the cost of attaining college and university degrees, would have been launched in May.
The technical committee formed by Ministry of Education under the supervision of Deputy Director for University Education Charles Omolo in April announced the commencement of development of academic modules for various programmes.
Despite widespread anticipation that the committee would keep them informed on the progress, little has come forth even as the first phase of a complete curriculum is expected to facilitate lessons by September.
Educationists concerned about the pace of the curriculum and implementation now say that more experts should have been consulted and incorporated into the team.
They said the academic and technical foundations of the first Open University of Kenya should not be overseen by what they termed as “an exclusive club of privately selected academics”.
“The government should have considered inclusion and inputs from Kenyans, among them a wide range to experts including pioneers of online education in Kenya,” said a lecturer from the Mt. Kenya region.
Lecturers drawn from universities familiar with online degree courses in the past offered by international and local universities alleged local old conservative universities had all along underrated open and distance learning.
“Most of the early universities did not always view pioneer online degrees attained by Kenyans from foreign universities positively and it is not fair to dominate the appointed technical team with the same technology-shy academicians,” said another lecturer.
The first choice of subjects adopted by the technical committee, the lecturers said, clearly indicated a biasness on how the formulators of the curriculum viewed the yet to be established university as they capture only Information Communication Technology (ICT) courses.
They added that the courses were already widely on offer in local colleges and universities and the technical committee should have kept in mind that the purpose of the university was to open degree courses for all.
“Just like the name suggests, the Open University of Kenya should be the most attractive schools of choice to all Kenyans and courses should be innovative. Let the technical committee borrow a leaf from the University of Cardiff, perhaps the most flexible curriculum-offering college in the world,” said a Journalism lecturer who studied in the Wales-based University.
He regretted that it was unfortunate that pioneer universities in the country were yet to fully embrace technology-based education.
By Robert Nyagah
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