Rhodes Business School has partnered with eLearnAfrica to develop a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), to fulfil the school’s goal of enabling its AMBA-accredited MBA to reach into Africa and beyond, like never before.
Professor Owen Skae, director of Rhodes Business School, says that the eLearnAfrica-supported VLE will be operational from 2024.
“We are very excited about this as it means our MBA is now more accessible than ever,” he says.
“We learnt two things from teaching through the pandemic. Returning to the old ‘business as usual model’ of ‘chalk and talk’ is not going to happen like it used to. At the same time, running Zoom or Teams sessions and just displaying your power-point slides does not suffice. Students and lecturers want the best of both the digital and the physical teaching world.”
He adds that ‘phygital’ is key. “The digital or virtual mode provides convenience and flexibility. The physical mode provides the immersion and human engagement that we still need. We know that our students still value the opportunity to come to Rhodes University, given that it is such a unique and special institution.”
The common denominator is having the necessary technology enablement to provide the best teaching and learning experience for students whilst creating a virtual classroom environment for academic staff to deliver effectively and efficiently, regardless of the mode of delivery.
“Getting the VLE platform that was needed required partnering with someone who knows what they are doing. Students need the right balance of synchronous and asynchronous interaction that only a top-class VLE can bring. That partner is eLearnAfrica” Prof Skae says.
The VLE-enabled MBA will allow the current four two-week block attendances (two blocks in Year 1 and two blocks in Year 2) to be reduced to one block in each year (one block in each of Year 1 and Year 2), for the face-face delivery mode.
The Rhodes MBA is a coursework degree comprising coursework and a research assignment. The degree is offered on a part-time, modular basis over two years.