In May 2019, a proposal authored by Dr. Amani Annah helped the University to win a grant from the Partnership for Enhanced Blended Learning (PEBL).

The Online/Blended Course Development Grant from the PEBL is funded by the Association of Commonwealth Universities. This grant, together with the training she will receive from the Association of Commonwealth Universities will certainly boost the development of many other courses/modules for KIUcâ¬â?cs Digital School of Open and Distance and E-learning platforms.

The Partnership for Enhanced and Blended Learning (PEBL) is supported by The Department for International Development (DFIDcâ¬â?cs) Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education Innovation and Reform (SPHEIR) programme, designed to address the critical academic staff shortages being faced by many East African universities today. With these developments, beneficiary universities will be able to share scarce teaching resources through quality assured, credit-bearing degree courses, delivered through blended learning online.

East African universities participating in the PEBL programme, will be able to expand the range of courses being offered to students already enrolled on taught undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes, thereby easing the teaching workload placed on their academic staff and/or lecturers. More so, quality assured courses being taught by academics from other institutions in the East African region, will be made available to students, to enable them to have access to online teachings, combined with face-to-face teaching, learning, and assessment. Thus, resulting in degree credits from their own university, though, with a vast level of knowledge from other academics across the region.

In a bid to ensure that the courses offered through PEBL are of high quality, the project is also geared towards growing the educational development capacity of partner universities, that is why in this grant comes together with training for facilitators from participating institutions, by the Association of Commonwealth Universities. This will go a long way to build a solid base of expertise amongst academic staff in the use of effective blended learning pedagogies.

By so doing, PEBL will enhance regional collaborations, teaching and learning quality assured, as well as progressive student outcomes. Thereby, helping to ensure that students graduate from East African universities with the appropriate skills and knowledge needed for the workplace (upon graduation), in a dynamic and changing socio-economic climate.

The PEBL partnership being led by the Association of Commonwealth Universities, United Kingdom (UK), is currently working with Commission for University Education (Kenya), Commonwealth of Learning (Canada), Kenyatta University (Kenya), Makerere University (Uganda), Open University of Tanzania, State University of Zanzibar (Tanzania), Staff and Educational Development Association (UK), Strathmore University (Kenya), University of Edinburgh (UK), and the University of Rwanda, as well as our prestigious Kampala International University (KIU), which has just joined as a beneficiary, among others.

For more information on the PEBL project, follow these links below:

https://www.acu.ac.uk/focus-areas/early-careers/partnership-for-enhanced-blended-learning/

https://www.spheir.org.uk/partnership-profiles/partnership-enhanced-and-blended-learning