AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Open University of Tanzania (OUT) has developed a unique examination system that ensures social distancing necessary for lessening contracting the recent global Covid-19 pandemic, the varsity officials have said.
The OUT’s model of Oral Examinations (OREX) probably is the new product suitable for university examinations in Tanzania, Africa and globally.
According to the Director of Examinations Syndicate of OUT, Dr Said Ally, higher learning institutions should come to OUT to learn the system, which he said the university intends to patent soon.
Currently, both students and university staff have been oriented to the system and are enjoying using it since the beginning of annual exams on July 20, 2020.
The OREX system is not only important for assessment of student’s performance, but it also gives an opportunity for examiners to get feedback from students on the performance of the department and university.
“We did benchmarking after we came to realise that most universities in developed countries conduct their examination sessions online, and orals were through video conferencing. We have decided to come up with our unique innovation idea by creating online collaboration tools, thanks to the guidance of our Vice-Chancellor, Prof Elifas Bisanda” said Dr Ally.
He said the system has been created with high level of technology, whereby everything is selected randomly and done by the system.
The student being examined can be in any location where he/she has access to the internet, and each of the three examiners are also located anywhere as long as they are connected on the internet.
Dr Ally also noted that the OUT vision is to be an Open Online university in its academic delivery. The development of OREX appears to be a smart innovation, in the efforts of OUT to attain its vision.
OREX removes physical face to face sessions with learners, saves time, and is very cost effective to both students and the university.
“It’s high time various delivery mechanisms are considered, which will enable learners to access higher education without leaving their homes or work place” he said.
Earlier, the Director of Communications and Marketing, Dr Omary Mohamed said the use of Zoom technology is very important because it saves time, solve physical attendance challenges and is the solution for examination cheaters.
“Our strategy is to assess the performance of our student’s creativity, confidence, fluency and breadth of awareness of the subject areas” he said adding; Some students who have done their examinations through OREX said the system is friendly and of low cost, saying other universities should emulate the system.
Bruno Daniel (35), a first year student who studies Bachelor of Law (LLB) at OUT said he has recently done his examination through OREX while in Arusha town and Same district respectively.
Another student, Gloria Pius (33) from Mlandizi, Coast Region who takes Bachelor of Arts in Human Resources Management said OREX is cheap because you do not need much money and energy to do examination.
