By Prof Madara Ogot
Kenya has had a surge in the number of Universities and enrolled students in recent years. This expansion has not been matched by increases in resources, investment in facilities, and hiring of additional academic staff. Further, pedagogical approaches remain out-dated with rote learning common, where lecturers spend most of their time dictating notes, or copying them on the whiteboards, with students, who often do not have textbooks, transcribing the notes. This restricts lecturers from having active intellectual engagement with their students, being able to facilitate lively participation or encourage enlightening discovery. Instead, the lecture hall climate is primarily passive absorption of facts.
Textbooks form an essential component of university education, and their role cannot be over-emphasized. Textbooks are key tools that help both the lecturer and the student achieve the courses’ learning objectives and outcomes. They are specifically designed for the university education needs, serving as a guide towards other sources of knowledge and towards the discovery of new knowledge. University students in Kenya, however, have limited access to textbooks.
There are several reasons for this. First, the few textbooks locally available, either as hard copy or as e-textbooks downloadable from international e-tailers such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon, are unaffordable for the vast majority of students. Due to budgetary constraints, they are also not available in the university libraries. The many books in the libraries are often out of date or not directly related to the courses on offer. Also, faculty members, who should be the local authors of textbooks, choose not to based on previous negative experiences their colleagues have had with publishers over royalty payments.
Publishers, on their part, are often constrained on royalty payments due to low uptake of the textbooks by students, who cite high costs, and rampant photo-copying by students, of the few textbooks available. Consequently, local publishers view university textbook publishing as an unprofitable venture. This vicious cycle has suppressed the availability of university level textbooks in the country denying both lecturers and students an essential component of quality teaching and learning.
Digital devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops) are increasingly becoming the major notebook, textbook, and information storage facility for students in institutions of higher learning. There is there a great opportunity to capitalize on the availability of digital devices, already in the hands of students, coupled with broadband WiFi networks, available to them on their campuses, to provide high-quality, locally authored affordable e-textbooks for all courses across the East Africa region.
A shift to e-textbooks offers three opportunities for introduction of innovative approaches to higher education. First, e-textbooks enable the introduction of features that enhance learning, not possible with print editions. These include simplicity of search, quick access, easy updating, use of multimedia, interactivity, links to external resources, among others. Offering these capabilities would significantly improve the teaching and learning environment in the universities. With the right set-up and just as for print purchases, students own their digital editions “for life”, even if they change devices. For example, e-books purchased on Amazon and used on their Kindle application. Students, therefore, will be able to build a collection of reference texts to them beyond graduation when they are in the job market. Second, the portfolios of e-textbooks can be made available to university libraries for e-lending, thereby growing their collections with relevant quality texts that would be available to their students who may not be able to afford to purchase their own copy. Finally, faculty members will now be able to adopt modern pedagogical approaches that leverage on the new features provided by e-textbooks and faculty authors would be guaranteed on-time royalty payments.
Available on Amazon for use on Kindle
We do we go from here. I call upon my faculty colleagues to jump in and offer e-textbooks for the above reasons. I have taken that first step, publishing, Introduction to Engineering, for use by 3rd year engineering students (I am actually teaching that class now). Will post a future blog on the experience and the views of the students.
About the Author
Prof Madara Ogot is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Innovation and Enterprise at the University of Nairobi and a Professor in Mechanical Engineering.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the University of Nairobi.
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