Benedict Oyo

Student Centred Learning in Uganda: the Mwalimu Open Educational Resource Benedict Oyo

Models of providing quality education to poor students are becoming extinct. This book presents results of successful development and deployment of the Mwalimu Open Educational Resource. As the name suggests, Mwalimu (Teacher) is an online platform that performs all activities expected of a real teacher. This book presents Mwalimu as a new platform for student centred learning in Uganda, whereby students do not only access available content but also contribute to the content pool under the principle of crowdsourcing. The content is structured under four areas including: notes, video lessons, questions and answers, and examinations and solutions. The examinations space is exclusive to the subject consultants, while the rest of the content is sourced from the crowd. The subject consultants also ensure that the crowdsourced content conform to the national curriculum requirements. In effect, the volume of content is the responsibility of the crowd while its quality is the responsibility of the subject consultants. The Mwalimu resource therefore enables poor schools to improve their academic performance despite their inability to afford highly qualified and experienced teachers.