UPSA to boost online studies

The University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) will from next academic year introduce a Master’s of Online Learning programme, the Vice Chancellor of the UPSA, Professor Abednego Feehi Okoe Amartey, has said.

That, he said, was because distance learning was the way to go at the moment.

According to him, to further boost online studies, one of the courses done at each level would be done online instead of face-to-face to enable students to be familiar with learning in the digital space.

“For example at Level 100, we would take one course and say this is purely an online course, Level 200 too we would do the same thing because we are getting into a new paradigm, the digital world, and so students must be conversant with these things,” he told the Daily Graphic to through more light on what the university was doing regarding online studies with the closure of schools following the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Schools closure

Following the closure of educational institutions in March as part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, some tertiary institutions in the country have adopted various online methods to reach out to their students with study presentations.

The institutions are using learning management systems, e-mails, video conferencing and social media platforms such as WhatsApp to organise lectures and give assignments.

Institutions that have adopted such online techniques include the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Accra Technical University, University of Cape Coast (UCC) and the University of Ghana.

The move is aimed at ensuring that the academic calendar of the institutions was not unduly disrupted. However, the mode of organising virtual lectures has received reactions from students.

Official accreditation

Professor Amartey said the UPSA had been officially accredited to undertake distance learning by the National Accreditation Board (NAB), and that it was done about two months ago.

He said there were lots of different distance learning schools but non of them had been accredited by the NAB.

“We got a commendation letter from the NAB commending us for the work we have done for distance learning and we are starting with Master’s programmes and then later include the others.

“We have the platform and so this in a way is telling us that distance learning is the way to go,” he said.

Professor Amartey prayed that COVID-19 would end soon so as to see how the final-year SHS students would be admitted.