“With the COVID19 threatening University closure, we have continued to maintain a high level of Moodle
content online.
“As of 2nd March, 91% of all 381 registered courses were fully on Moodle with the Faculty of Business and Entrepreneurship (FOBE) and the School of Maritime Training (SOMT) having a 100% of their courses online.
This is outlined in the NUS annual report for the financial year 2021. The Faculty of Technical Education (FOTE) had the lowest at 44% due to the nature of their courses but this percentage has improved since last year.
“More staff have adjusted to multimodal delivery which is being encouraged as we plan for full-time courses/programmes online in the next four years.
Last year, we invested heavily in our ICT capability to meet the current and future needs of online education. The development of an Education TV channel is another step up in our efforts at building capacity and resilience.
“The support of the two ISP providers are Digicel and Vodafone was and is critical to our ongoing success in this area.
“We have identified courses and programmes that could be delivered completely online, and we await a technical advisor to assist with curriculum design and other technical issues to move those courses incrementally with appropriate preparation and support of the relevant staff. For example, the FOE can deliver 90% of their courses completely online.”
According to the University’s annual report, they received assurance from the Samoa Qualifications Authority (SQA) that a move to online delivery will not affect the accredited status of courses although new standards in Distributed and Distance Instruction (DDI) are being developed by the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) which the School of Medicine may have to meet as part of international accreditation.
“We are very aware though that what is threatening the success of online education and lifelong learning is the availability and accessibility of students to technology devices and WIFI.
“Two of our separate surveys last month had shown that only 4% of TVET students (Faculty of Technical Education, FOTE) have a laptop and 35% have a smartphone with 26% having no internet access at home.
“If we are going to be successful in delivering online education, then we need to address at an institution and country the other parts of the equation.”
