Online Teaching and Learning of Creative Arts in Public and Private Institutions of Higher Education in Kenya: Disparities, Opportunities, Shortcomings, and Sustainability

Introduction

Learning in the creative arts has traditionally been associated with (re)enacted embodied collaborative experiences, with successful knowledge impartation based on practical observation and a subsequent “in-person doing”. However, in the past three years, technological advancements, fuelled by interruptions brought by COVID-19 have necessitated a rapid shift from the conventional face-to-face mode of instruction to online and blended ones in most universities and colleges in Kenya. While this sudden move to online learning was expected to enhance learner interactions with technology and boost digital literacy, it did not come without severe shortcomings and challenges within an already changing education sector. The question of its sustainability in the post pandemic era also hangs in the balance, with most public institutions already reverting back to face-to-face teaching. The epistemological questions that this chapter seeks to address are; how does online instruction of creative arts fit within the current Kenyan educational landscape? What are its strengths and shortcomings and how do these impact on the learners’ attainment of key competencies? What disparities exist between the practice of teaching creative arts online between the public and private institution?

Prior to the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, online learning in Kenya was basically an extension of Distance Education, mainly involving the uploading of modules on learning management systems by university IT staff (Makokha and Mutisya, 2016) and was limited to learning areas that do not require hands on experiences among learners. Online teaching in the creative arts in Kenya thus owes its roots to what has been described as emergency remote education (Bozkurt, & Sharma, 2020). This was seen as part of temporary intervention measures introduced worldwide to cushion learners against losses associated with the sudden shutdown of learning institutions despite the country being ill prepared for such transition. The measures were embraced by most institutions of higher learning in Kenya, despite that fact that they were ill prepared, both in terms of pedagogical approaches and accessibility to learners, as most parts of the country, where their students resided, did not have the structures required for the basic technological communication. A study conducted just before the pandemic iterates this state of unpreparedness by documenting glaring differences between the urban and rural areas in terms of key ICT infrastructure and internet access which at the time averaged to 69% (Ndungu, Lewis and Mothobi, 2019). Thus, the sudden shift from traditional face to face models of learning further highlighted clear demarcations of an existing “digital divide between those who have access to electricity, internet infrastructure, data, and devices, and those that do not” (Bozkurt et al, 2020). While private universities were able to quickly invest in infrastructure and gadgets to help their learners transition seamlessly to the new modes, their tutors remained relatively unskilled in digital literacy. Public institutions on the other hand grappled with government procurement policies and lack of funds, which saw their learners lag behind. This was the unfamiliar terrain that tutors and learners of creative arts suddenly found themselves in during and after the Covid 19 pandemic.

Creative arts require a practical approach where most of the learning involves in-person-doing. This alone meant that unique pedagogical approaches had to be taken in guiding learners to do practical tasks such as playing musical instruments and evaluating the same.