Students with special needs will not be disadvantaged on e-learning platforms – UGCS

Mr Lucas Chigabatia,Chief Information Technology Officer, University of Ghana

Management of the University of Ghana has moved to ensure that students with special needs are not put at a disadvantage as it has planned for academic activities at the university to continue online.

Students of the university, following an announcement from the Pro-Vice-Chancellor in charge of students and academic affairs, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, that the university was moving to e-learning, have push against the plan, questioning its smooth running.

Some of the concerns raised by the students include how students with special needs could be engaged on the e-learning platform.

But Chief Information Technology Officer at the University of Ghana Computing System, Mr. Lucas Chigabatia says that UCGS was working with the Office of Special Needs to address the matter.

He said that lecturers with students with special needs have been asked to engage the services of sign translators.

He added that software to provide captions for the videos that would be used in lecturing is also being procured.

“The faculty members that have such students in their class have been advised to plan such that at the time that they are creating the videos or delivering the sessions, there is a sign language expert to do signing that goes with the video. Software that we are procuring also allows for captioning. Adequate preparation is being made to serve them [ students with special needs],” he assured

Mr. Chigabatia further bemoaned the use of private email addresses by students to contact the virtual service desk.

He is urging students to rather use their student email address in order for them to properly manage communication with students.

“A lot of students are contacting us via the virtual service desk and they are using private email addresses. This is making it difficult to determine those who are genuinely University of Ghana students. It is important that we encourage our students to use the officially assigned University of Ghana email addresses,” he said.