Moving online – One university stays ahead of the pack

With a lockdown in force since midnight on Saturday 21 March, Rwanda’s universities are exploring online alternatives to teaching and learning to ensure the academic year is not disrupted.

The decision to close all universities and higher learning institutions in Rwanda was made known ahead of the lockdown announcement. As at 25 March, the country had 36 reported cases of COVID-19.

One university that seems to be ahead of the pack when it comes to preparedness to take learning online is the African Leadership University (ALU) that has campuses in Rwanda and Mauritius.

The Rwanda campus opened in 2017 and the total number of students across both campuses (including Mauritius) is small at 1,100. Its curriculum focuses on entrepreneurial leadership and encourages students to declare a mission to better align their major with solving a grand global or African challenge. It offers both undergraduate and postgraduate courses and attracts students from over 40 countries.

Stopping teaching was ‘never an option’

According to James Olson, ALU spokesperson, stopping teaching and learning was never an option.

“Africa and the world need us more than ever and this pandemic is illustrative of the need for the kinds of innovative, purpose-inspired leaders we are empowering here at ALU. Halting courses never crossed our mind,” he added.

He said the university management was pre-emptive in moving to online learning channels well before any government mandate, and had activated its emergency business continuity plan.

“The centrepiece of this plan is moving our in-person classes to our online channels,” he told University World News via email.

“With our students now residing in dozens of different African nations with varying degrees of internet access and bandwidth, our online class experience and curriculum will be delivered through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous approaches. No student will be left behind,” he said.

He said the university had tested and simulated the online channels last week to help ensure a seamless experience for the students and faculty, and classes started this week.

“[Online] classes started yesterday for the Rwanda campus and the Mauritius campus starts this Thursday,” he said.

Olson said the delivery was “going well” so far.

“Faculty are having daily check-ins with students and other faculty to gauge how it’s going, share what’s working and what’s not, and pivot as needed. It will obviously take a week or two to reach a comfortable cruising altitude for everyone, but we are gaining altitude every day,” he said.

“All that said, we know we are still in the early innings of this crisis. The shift online this week and getting all our students home safely to 40 different countries is not the finish line - it’s the starting line.”

Different levels of preparedness

Other Rwandan universities do not seem to have reached the same level of preparedness.

Aline Kabanda, the Akilah Institute president, said that the university management was in the process of requesting official permission to start online courses should the crisis continue.

“All our students are at home … If this [closure] continues we will obviously offer online courses but we need to first ask for permission. We are looking for different ways to engage our students, be it offering courses and giving them assignments, among others,” she said.

The University of Rwanda, the country’s only public university, said in the wake of the closures that all students are encouraged to continue their self-learning and take advantage of online teaching materials.