Ban on LDC online classes spot on

By Lisa M. Bigirwa, LDC student

In March, President Yoweri Museveni directed that all primary and secondary schools, universities, and other institutions of learning be closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the focus on continuity of learning, the education ministry set up guidelines and designed a preparedness and response plan for COVID-19 by developing standardised study lesson packages in the core subjects for primary and secondary level.

Unfortunately, these guidelines do not extend to university and other tertiary institutions thus creating a lacuna which institutions took advantage of to haphazardly complete the syllabus as opposed to ensuring that all students within that academic year are effectively taught.

Take the example of the Law Development Centre (LDC), a tertiary academic institution where one can obtain a postgraduate diploma in legal practice.

Until the education ministry stopped it from conducting online lectures for the Bar Course, it had unleashed a reign of terror with impunity on helpless students. I hail the education ministry for their intervention.

For any legal mind pursuing the dream of practicing law in a courtroom in Uganda, LDC, is not a choice, it is the only option since it is the only intermediary in the country through which one must go, in order to achieve the lifelong dream of being an advocate.

However, LDC must realise that this monopoly precludes it from having the same attitude of impunity towards its students.

LDC like other institutions has been left in a frenzy by the current global situation that has left the education sector in a mess so it can be argued that theirs was simply an innocent attempt at redeeming what little was left of the current academic year.

However, this cannot be done at the expense of its economically diverse student community. One's survival in these trying and uncertain times should not have to conflict with their education.

And yet an iron fist at LDC had demanded education take priority over primary survival.

While there are some households that have managed to stay financially afloat amid the lockdown implemented as a result of the global pandemic, there are many, previously self-sustaining, that are now struggling even to have a meal a day.

To put the cost burden in perspective, I dived into a little research on the data consumption rates of one of the video conferencing applications adopted by most institutions amidst these times, Zoom.

A quick google search will reveal that for a 1:1 zoom video meeting, the data usage is somewhere between 540MB and 1.62GB per hour, depending on streaming quality. The more people you have in a Zoom call, the more data you will use up to run the meeting.

The lowest conceivable cost impact on an LDC student that had at least four hours a day of class as per the timetable, would be that they consume at least 540MB per hour, for six days a week. This would require an estimated minimum of 2.1 GB daily, 12.7GB weekly, and 50.6GB monthly.

For any Ugandan that owns a smartphone, the current charges for data offered by two of the most prominent networks are not to be laughed at.

On June 18, an online petition by LDC student leaders was circulated among the student community requesting the students to support the continuation of online classes. The petition has up to now still failed to reach the target goal of 1,500 signatures. 

LDC, what was the rush for? Does the race to complete a curriculum outweigh the role to effectively educate the very people this curriculum is meant to serve?

Kudos to Parliament and the Government for saving the suffering silent majority.