Ever since I enrolled for ALICT course in October 2012, my life has not been the same again. The ALICT course opened my eyes to see a new world and approach things differently. 1- Knowledge and approach
Within my organization (Uganda National Council for Higher Education, NCHE), I have been able to create awareness about the knowledge society to the NCHE staff whilst helping them to appreciate the concept of the knowledge society. Whilst I pointed out how inconsistence is detrimental to development, I opened eyes to see that even within NCHE, there are several policy inconsistencies. I am now glad that the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, 2001 and other statutory regulations are being revised. Since I am privileged to attend the Ministry’s top management meeting, I was able to contribute in raising the awareness about inconsistencies in some of the policies within the Ministry of Education to the effect that a programme that was to be launched by a state university had to be halted to allow coherence planning to be done since another department within the ministry had also been running a similar programme. Being in charge of accreditation and licensing at NCHE helped me to initiate the process to review our accreditation tool in order to promote the use of ICT in higher educational institutions in Uganda. I actually wrote and presented (in May 2013) a paper at the e-learning Africa 2013 conference in Namibia pointing out the role of regulatory agencies in promoting ICT in higher education institutions. This was to encourage other regulatory agencies in Africa to adopt initiatives that I had begun with NCHE. As far as cooperating with other government agencies is concerned, I became part of the group emphasizing the strong linkages to promote coherence. For example, NCHE has now renewed its working relationship with National Council for Science and Technology, National Information Technology Authority Uganda, and several others. Finally, I also supported the idea with all other ALICT Alumni from Uganda to start a forum called Knowledge Society Uganda and I am happy to say the forum has started and we will use it to promote the knowledge society development in Uganda. 2-Skills and Attitudes
With the leadership skill I am a better leader particularly in helping people to achieve their career objectives and to develop their personal objectives.My public speaking has improved a lot in recent days and I always keep people smiling particularly when I begin to discuss futures thinking, technologies and society and how to look at things in a futuristic approach. After developing my personal development plan, I agreed with my boss that I needed to become a leader in promoting ICT use in education in Uganda and throughout Africa. What came next in my mind was to plan for a research that would be a springboard for me into this position of influence. So I developed a PhD proposal for learning technologies with direction that will look at how to improve e-learning design using social technology approach. The aim of which is to be able to revamp our education to meet the demands in the knowledge age where social network technologies have become a key force. This is how I got admission to the University of Reading in the UK with prestigious sponsorship from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK. In conclusion I must say that my attitudes have tremendously changed and the knowledge and skills I acquired have transformed me. I now look at things in futuristic approach and I have much hopes that Africa, unlike seen by other people will in future be the centre of world development. Since I am part of the group that oversees higher education in Uganda, I must be at the forefront to bring the change we need for knowledge society development. As you can see, I moved from my original field of Data Communication Networks to Learning Technologies because the influence of ALICT course in my life. By Francis Otto
PhD Student at the University of Reading, U.K.