Strengthening Opportunities for Online Delivery of Post graduate Programmes in African Universities

There is increasing need for university teaching staff to develop skills and approaches towards teaching and student learning in institutions of higher education. Specifically the need is towards providing them with the pedagogical tools that will enable them to document and harness student learning. African Universities have over the years implemented online delivery approaches with the aim of increasing access to quality education. RUFORUM through working with academic staff under the regional programs has developed over 34 post graduate courses which are available on an Open access platform at http://www.ruforum.activemoodle.com/ . Despite the number of courses developed by university faculties and accessed on the online platforms, there has been limited uptake from the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) member Universities as distance learning or online postgraduate courses accessed without limitations within the region. RUFORUM is working with various partners such as the Association of African Universities (AAU), South African Institute of Distance Learning (SAIDE) and Agrinatura to build capacity of staff and students. This is being done through skills enhancement courses on online delivery and access of teaching and learning. RUFORUM is also working to influence eLearning Policies in African Universities and providing a platform for cross learning among partners and universities. During his visit at Makerere University, Prof. Didier Pillot, met with RUFORUM staff and representatives from Makerere University on the regional PhD programme in Agricultural and Rural Innovation (ARI). ARI is implemented by a consortium of three East African Universities (Makerere University in Uganda, Egerton University in Kenya and Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania) in partnership with European universities. The ARI II project aims to strengthen human resource capacity to foster Agricultural and Rural Innovation in Eastern Africa (FED/2013/320-091).