Uganda:SOMA ONLINE STUDY, THE HUB OF THE EAST AFRICAN ONLINE EDUCATION

OUR FIRST AIM AS SOMA IS TO DELIVER QUALITY EDUCATION TO EVERYONE,ANYWHERE AND AT ANYTIME.

Vianny Kamara-administrative assistant “our first aim as SOMA is to deliver quality online education to everyone, anywhere and at any time”. (Photo: courtesy of NYUMBANI)

What is Online Education?

Online education is a type of educational instruction that is delivered via the internet to students using their home computers, tabloids or smart phones. During the last decade, online studies have become popular alternative for a wide range of nontraditional students, include those who want to continue working full-time or raising families. Most of the time, online degree programs and courses are offered via the host school's online learning platform, although some are delivered using alternative technologies. Although there are subtle dissimilarities, the main difference between online and traditional learning is the fact that online education liberates the student from the usual trappings of on-campus degree programs — including driving to school, planning their schedule around classes, and being physically present for each sequence of their coursework.

Uganda is one of the countries with a fast rising education system with close to 6 million students enrolled in different education institutions across the country. Education particularly institutional learning has become a necessity for Ugandans as the economy is growing and this calls for a skilled labor force that can effectively work in various sectors like agriculture, tourism and energy that are the backbone of Uganda.

Education is increasingly developed from the time when universal Primary education was introduced in the late 90’s up to now when students are increasingly adapting to new methods and forms for learning and revision. One of the major challenges that Uganda has faced is the continuous use of ineffective revision material and learning material to enable students understand what they learn in classroom and excel academically. Poor academic performance in Ugandan schools is attributed majorly to lack of enough reading content for students to relate to hence hindering learning and resulting to academic failures. This is evidently seen as students at primary level, secondary level and university level fail exams prepared by their school teachers and the ones at national level which are prepared by the Uganda National Examination Board.

Organizations and companies in Uganda have reported high expenses that are involved in organizing seminars, workshops, refresher courses and trainings for their employees. Costs related to organizing workplace place include transport costs, accommodation, hire of training venue and meals for the participants all which expenditures and cause losses to big companies in Uganda as well as startups.

Soma eLearning is an online educational platform that seeks to tackle the challenge of poor academic performance by enabling students access to paid learning content (course notes, textbooks), assignments prepared by professional Ugandan teachers from across the country and as well facilitates workplace learning to enable employees attend online organizational trainings from anywhere through the use of their phones, tablets and computers. Our aim is to enable students make constructive revision through the use of mobile phones, tablets and computers by accessing lesson.notes, tutorials ,Coursenotes , answers and question guides , short tests and mini exams prepared by Ugandan teachers in written, audio and video formats. Students sign up to the platform and get the chance to choose content of their choose from kindergarten to university level and use for revision purposes. Our teachers are form different schools with a vast knowledge base that we believe is helpful for students to refer to in regards to the content and the lesson that they have prepared.

The platform has an interface that enables organizations and companies prepare online trainings for their employees. The training managers authorized by the organizations sign up on behalf of the company or organizations and carefully prepare trainings for the employees. Employees are invited through a training link to sign up and complete the modules designed by the training manager of their organization. Employees are in position to use their mobile phones, tablets and computers to sign up and attend the training from wherever they are at any time which eliminates the costs incurred by the companies to organize physical trainings , seminars and courses for their employees hence a cost effective way to conduct workplace learning.

Considering the increased use of mobile money for making payments and transfer of funds in Uganda. Soma elearning platform is integrated with the MTN Mobile money and Airtel Money Systems to enable users to make easy payments for the learning content from anywhere by use of their mobile phones. This shall ease the learning process and enable students improve self-managed digital learning as they will access revision material from anywhere at any time of their convenience.

Soma Elearning platform is making a ground contribution the transformation for the education system in Uganda through digital learning and continues to foster students learning and workplace learning through its well-designed interfaces and give the user ease to make ground research , revision and effectively improve on their learning. Subscribe for our Digital learning services today and experience our learning oriented features that facilitate fast track and improved digital learning.

WHATS THE DEFERENCE WITH SOMA

The entire team of SOMA and their desire to put up and extend education to every Ugandan and non-Ugandan is quite remarkable for me, with very limited resources this team of young dedicated youth have tirelessly worked together to put up the best revised content from the top teachers, organizational and company consultants and the most updated national syllabus to deliver the best quality material for education at the click of a button.

SOMA is not the first online study plat form online but I can guarantee you, it is the cheapest of them all, the reason we did it that way, is because our first aim as SOMA is to deliver quality online education to everyone, anywhere and at any time, trying to fill up the gap when a child has missed class because school fees is not paid on time, we as SOMA shall be there to support that child at that time because we value the fruits of education first than the value education cost, that’s the reason we are extremely cost efficient.

BENEFITS OF SOMA E-LEARNING 

Kigere Kavuma Julius-Creative Manager “Ideas are the new natural resources of the 21^st century” (photo: courtesy of NYUMBANI)

The current challenges facing traditional colleges and universities, including higher tuition and budget cuts have caused many students to search for alternatives. With nearly three million students currently enrolled in fully online study programs and six million taking at least one online course as part of their degree program, online education has clearly become one of the most popular higher education alternatives. The continually improving reputation of online learning has also helped fuel its expansion, as initial skepticism has faltered in the face of evidence that shows that online learning can be just as effective as face-to-face education.

All of this means that students, from working professionals to recent high school graduates, find many reasons to take all or some of their courses online. Below are advantages to online learning.

Lower total costs: Online programs can be a more affordable option than traditional colleges. Though not all online programs have less expensive net tuition prices than traditional colleges, associated costs are almost always less expensive. For example, there are no commuting costs, and sometimes there is also not any required course materials such as textbooks because those are often available for free online. In addition, many colleges and universities have begun to accept credits earned via free massive open online courses (MOOCs), the most recent advance in online education. Free online courses such as these can help students fulfill general education requirements at little to no cost.

More comfortable learning environment: Commercials that featuring online students studying in the pajamas only skim the surface of one of the primary benefits of online education: there are no physical class sessions. Lectures and other materials are electronically sent to the student, who will then read them and complete assignments. Students will not have to fight traffic, find parking spaces, and leave work early to go to class, or miss important family time.

Convenience and flexibility: Online courses give students the opportunity to plan their study time around the rest of their day, instead of the other way around. Students can study and work when they are at their peak energy, whether that’s early morning or late at night. Course material is always accessible online, so there’s no need to schedule special trips to a library either. All of this makes online learning a good option for students who need to balance their work and family commitments.

More interaction and greater ability to concentrate: While there is contradictory evidence about the rate of online student participation versus participation in traditional courses, one thing is certain: online courses offer shy or more reticent students the opportunity to participate in class discussions or chats with more ease than face-to-face class sessions. Some students even report that online courses are easier to concentrate in because they are not distracted by other students and classroom activity.

Avoid commuting: During snowstorms and thunderstorms, colleges may cancel classes; if they don’t, you run the risk of getting hurt in dangerous driving conditions. Rather than miss important class sessions, students in online courses can always “attend” by participating on discussion boards or in chat sessions, turn in their work on time, and watch lectures or read materials. Many students also find that the amount they save on fuel costs can be substantial if they don’t have to commute to a physical campus in general, no matter what the weather conditions may be.

Improve your technical skills: Even the most basic online course requires the development of new computer skills, as students learn to navigate different learning management systems (LMS) and programs. The skills students learn to participate in their online courses translate to many professions, including creating and sharing documents, incorporating audio/video materials into your assignments, completing online training sessions, etc.

Ideas are the new natural resources of the 21^st century, that is SOMA in nut shell, as one of the individuals who came up with this idea, we first had to pass through diversity each of us individually, some of us couldn’t afford school due to high school fees and at the same time trying to look for a job or doing a job that pays you pea nuts and it’s not on your passion either, so we sat together one day as people who share the same challenges and asking ourselves how are we going to stop this hardships. After months of discussing and deliberating, we came up with an entrepreneurial solution that both benefits the society greatly, something that is of our passion and something that earns us not very much but enough.

SOMA eLearning since the deliberations were made, it has tremendously made a lot of impact to people seeking knowledge, the first impact it has made is eliminating the economic status ‘to who gets the quality education, as one of the funding reasons of SOMA eLearning is to close the gap between the poor and the rich when it comes to getting quality education as we made sure it is absolutely affordable and accessible.

The online plat form is made in a way that the teachers who share their content are appreciated by acknowledging them on the plat form and through the proceeds received  by subscribers and it has helped teachers compare notes with each other through the online teachers page, which we believe it is putting uniformity in the flow of the syllabus system national wide, because the number of teachers at SOMA eLearning is  big enough to raise an alarm if there is a poor flow of the class room education delivery system through the comparison of their notes online, gratefully that incidence has not occurred. 

 
 somaelearning.com

Uganda:Demonstrations over age limit bill.

Museveni, Democracy or Dictatorship.

Police in Uganda have arrested several  people including an opposition leader, for demonstrating against a plan to amend the constitution and scrap the presidential age limit.

Norbert Mao, leader of the Democratic Party, was arrested alongside his supporters as they protested against the planned constitutional amendment.

For days now, a clique of legislators from the ruling party, National Resistance Movement, (NRM), has been clandestinely agitating for the removal of the age limit which would give a leeway for the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni to run for another term in 2021.

According to the constitution, anyone above the age of 75 is not eligible to run for the presidency. This means that Museveni who is 73 years old and has been in power since 1986 will be 77 years at the next election, and , therefore not eligible to run again.

Daniel Ruhweza, a professor of constitutional law at Makerere University said that amending the constitution to remove the age limit will be catastrophic.

"The writers of the constitution had a reason why they discussed it before we even debate whether or not we should remove it," he told DW. "I think it will be prudent for us to test whether the reasons for which they placed it in our constitution are justifiable reasons. Ours is a young democracy and indeed the debates around constitutionalism need a mature democracy."

Livingston Sewanyana, Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative also told DW that, "for us it [age limit] is an important safeguard considering the fragility of the Ugandan state."

However, President Yoweri Museveni has distanced himself from those agitating for constitutional amendments to lift the age limit as mere idlers.

"Part of the rumour is that there is a debate about age limit; what are you debating? Which proposal are you debating or talking about? Where is the proposal?" Museveni queried in a meeting with reporters.

However, opposition groups have described Museveni's denial of the whole plan to remove age limits as a ploy to hoodwink Ugandans and push it through his cadres or members of parliament from his party.

Most recently, James Kakooza, a legislator from the ruling NRM party who is also renowned for having pushed for the removal of the presidential term limits in 2005, has embarked on another political maneuver to push for the removal of presidential age limit.

"I think there was a contradiction in the constitution. If somebody has the ability, then you cannot remove that democracy from the people," Kakooza said.

            Social media and youth against removal of age limit.

The members of the peoples democratic party on the campaign against the age limit bill to be forwarded to parliament.

Social media has been awash with the debate on removing presidential age limit with some youth groups even organizing mock birthday parties for President Museveni. They have also coined a slogan that says, "Age limit is the Limit." On several occasions they have clashed with police while rallying Ugandans on the streets of Kampala to join their campaign against lifting of the age limit.

Although the bill has not yet been tabled in parliament for debate, the speaker of the Ugandan parliament Rebecca Kadaga said that some legislators have been threatened not to amend the constitution.

"Members [parliamentarians] are being targeted, they are receiving threatening messages and I want to assure the country that I have not seen any bill. It is not here but there is anger everywhere," she told parliament.

On the streets of Kampala, the idea of lifting the age limit is not so popular. Jacquelyn Kakunzi told DW that, "our democracy is not stable. In Uganda today where 75 percent of Ugandans are youth and below the age of 35 weare really creating a situation where the youth cannot be leaders."

Opposition leader Kizza Besigye has also raised concerns and denounced the move to lift the age limit. Besigye who has lost to Museveni in the previous four elections has been calling for an uprising and reject the proposals. "The way forward, we recommend that all pro-democracy forces should focus on terminating control of power by the NRM junta," Besigye said.