**9. Curriculum innovation**

What comes out clearly from ongoing discussion in this chapter is that, we learn by doing. This implies that any curricula innovation and reform should be responsive to current demand of society. For instance, in preparation of a generation to spur the knowledge production the curricula must be responsive to these demands of the technological innovation. If young people are to organically become creative and innovative, they should exploit online advancing mobile technologies for knowledge production and national economic development. This preparation has to starts from curricula experiences and the training they receive.

Curricula innovation in higher education in Africa will take a new direction. "Not only instructional formats will need to change, but degree programs and course content will too…. Higher education will increasingly move from knowledge acquisition to skills development, with a shift toward inter and multidisciplinary" [46]. The motivation is to produce graduates who are multi-skilled and multidisciplinary [46]. Attention is needed to promote a holistic and innovative curricula that impacts the job skills of the twenty-first century [8], yet, the current curricula and delivery method are too theoretical and utilize outdated skills [17] for twenty-first century higher education.

Similarly, Africa cannot expect different results without making substantial adjustments in the quality of education and training experiences available to its youth and without actually interrogating the curricula content being offered, how it is delivered, and how it is being assessed. Thus, the curricula business success will also depend on ensuring that HEIs are capable of glooming and nurturing highly skilled individuals that are endowed with transferable twenty-first century skills who will be able to support Africa's economies [12]. Therefore, there is also need for implementing curricula innovation in order to meet the twenty-first century skills through enhanced interactive learning [18].

Tracer studies in Africa indicate that many graduates of professional courses do not actually practice their professions. For instance, Makerere University SIDA/SEREC

*Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Africa Embracing the "New Normal" for Knowledge… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101063*


#### **Table 2.**

*Possible questions to guide curricula innovation.*

study revealed that majority of the graduating veterinary doctors from the university do not actually practice veterinary medicine or engage in active animal farming activities, but rather end up in other business sectors, i.e. pharmacy, car dealers, real estates, among others. The overarching question is that why are such highly trained people opting not to engage with their professions after graduation? Yet, Makerere University offers some of the top/best Agriculture and Veterinary programs in Africa. There is need to interrogate the curricula of these programs in terms of their content, innovativeness in delivery, and assessment. This may also apply to almost all other courses and professions for HEIs in Africa.

**Table 2** shows the keys to guide the curricula innovation and addressing such questions could inform the curricula design process.

These questions may aid the process of undertaking curricula renovation process on issues which are highly complex, embedded and interlinked as reflected in **Figure 1**. We envisage the need to work towards developing a general curricula design framework that identifies the various factors and drivers that are essential to sustain important curricula innovation within the globalization context. Numerous curricula design models on contemporary higher education can be consulted [37, 47].

### **10. Makerere University as case studies**

The College of Education and External Studies (CEES) is one of the nine colleges at Makerere University. CEES conducted a needs assessment survey on preparedness for online teaching and learning. The Faculty whose courses were taught or were being taught online were invited to participate in study via CEES' staff WhatsApp platform. The information was gathered during the second week of July 2021 for those courses that had been taught online for semester two of academic year 2020/2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Here we report data for both challenges and coping strategies during online teaching and learning presented in **Tables 3** and **4** respectively.

What comes out clearly from **Table 3** shows that most of the challenges faced by MUK faculty in online teaching and learning were consistent with the barriers highlighted in literature [48]. However, lack of skills in online learning and


#### **Table 3.**

*Challenges encountered during online teaching and learning.*

pedagogies for both faculty and students, negative attitudes about online learning, connectivity issues and lack of gadgets suitable for online learning stood to be very critical. Digital divide also remains to be a serious concern [33]. As such numerous technical problems arose and the need for support in online learning is urgently required without compromising the educational experiences for students [33]. In addition, digital divide may continue to exist [30] and yet, it negatively impacts on the teaching and learning experiences [49] as well as extends inequalities in higher education access [17, 50].

**Table 4** shows share responses for faculty regarding the coping strategies for online teaching and learning. They shared their insights into what they thought could be done to make online teaching and learning successful.

Clearly, **Table 4** reveals that faculty see the need for technical support for both faculty and students as being vital. The support should focus on promoting skills in online pedagogies for both faculty and students. The need to motivate and encourage positive attitudes about online learning cannot be underscored. It is also crucial to university management to deal with connectivity and digital divide issues for both faculty and students. However, **Table 5** shows recommended action points for


#### **Table 4.**

*Coping strategies for online teaching and learning.*

institutional leaders and managers in their efforts to embrace online teaching and learning. We find these action points ideal in providing a starting point for all HEIs wanting to embark on the online teaching and learning journey.

The action point presented in **Table 5** are consistent with our understanding of what we perceive to be new possibilities to online teaching and learning. However, African nations can also take a leaf from Senegal as a step to embrace online teaching and learning. In Senegal, each student in higher education is given a laptop subsidized by the government and is paid for by the student in installments within a period of 12 months. Furthermore, the government has taken the lead in providing connectivity to HEIs. With increased connectivity, the Ministry signed an agreement with Elsevier and other publishers to provide access to journals and databases. Other initiatives of the government which leverage broadband connectivity, include establishment of the Senegal Virtual University, the Knowledge City and Technology Park. Internet access is free for students in all public universities [17].


*Adopted from World Bank [16].*

#### **Table 5.**

*Action points for leaders in short- and medium terms.*

### **11. Discussion and conclusions**

What comes out clearly from this work is that where we have reached there is no point of return. Globalization, knowledge based economy, and the pandemic are all here to stay. HEIs must take a mantle to boldly address human development and social, cultural, health and governance issues as required [2]. The role of HE in providing relevant skills, technical and entrepreneurial trainings that are on demand, as well as those relevant in developing and promoting technological innovations is critical [12]. The demand for new knowledge and educational opportunities will not only continue to grow but will be password to economic survival in Africa. With declining government spending towards higher education, HEIs must develop alternative affordable options to support high quality education for diverse student' populations [13]. Blended learning in higher education in Africa will become the order of the day. With advancing ICT technologies, mobile and cloud computing solutions are capable of rendering higher education affordable [34] for the increasing number of students who could not otherwise have been able to access it before.

These ICTs technologies especially mobile technologies could easily make education more flexible and accessible in many amazing and unlimited ways [25].

Currently, curricula innovation in HE has become the order of the day especially being able to deliver education amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. HEIs are increasingly challenged to focus on the curricula integration promote/stimulate knowledge production, creativity and innovation of higher level skills that may to be more important in the globalized knowledge economy. Interestingly, more students and teachers are now not only beginning to appreciate online teaching and learning but are becoming more comfortable and confident with it [20]. The need to upgrade online infrastructure to meet the changing demographics of students, curricula and pedagogical demands of the twenty-first century HE [8] cannot be underscored. Additionally, embracing pedagogical changes in terms of curricula design and delivery that involves students as active participants in the learning process rather than passive consumers [8] is the way to go.

This will be vital especially during the pandemic and post pandemic era where online learning/virtual learning environment has become part of our daily lives. Indeed, African nations cannot continue to drag their feet by their failure to do what the rest of the world are doing as far as making available quality and equitable education opportunities to all college going cohorts.

Unfortunately, millions of college students in Africa are at home out of school due to the pandemic lockdown. However, their counterparts in the developed countries are accessing quality educational experiences through virtual/remote learning

## *Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Africa Embracing the "New Normal" for Knowledge… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101063*

environments. Tough decisions have to be made for Africa to become innovative in terms of building capacity for their citizens. Given that the quality of any nation/ country cannot surpass the quality of its citizens.

The future of Africa's HEIs will depend on improved collaboration, networking, and information sharing. Indeed, advancing online mobile technologies and cloud computing facilities could enable Africa's HEIs to develop communities of practice [35] and embrace the 'new normal' for the knowledge production and economic growth. This chapter has emphasized curricula innovation effort that are current realities' driven if these reforms are to make a difference. However, further research is needed on how to carry out curricula design intended to integrate current realities associated with the New Normal to meet the demands of the globalized knowledge society. Further research should generate innovative curricula design frameworks to guide future curricula innovation interventions and processes that target technological knowledge production and innovation.
