156 – Innovative MSc Programme for Maths Teachers in Kenya, Part 1

[00:00:07] David: Hi, and welcome to the IDEMS Podcast. I’m David Stern, a founding director of IDEMS, and it’s my pleasure to be here today with Mike Obiero. Many titles: the president of the Kenyan Maths Society, a lecturer at Maseno University, all sorts of other things. Mike, great to be here with you.

[00:00:26] Mike: Thank you so much, David. It’s been a while since we had this discussion and, I am looking forward to having an engaging discussion with you especially on the topic of the MSc program. Thank you.

[00:00:37] David: Yes, this MSc program is really exciting. So let me start by just letting you introduce it.

[00:00:45] Mike: Thank you. There are so many… I think the motivating idea behind the MSc program came in different ways. One of the ways is that we have many people coming to do the MSc programs at the university. Some of them are brilliant, some of them are okay. The main challenge is that most of these people have taken a bit of time from when they graduated their bachelor’s to when they’re coming for their MSc.

And most of them are school teachers. And when they come to the MSc mostly it’s in mathematics. Very few do education, but when they come to the mathematics, there’s a, some kind of disconnect between when they last did university level mathematics and just trying to pick up after a couple of years.

We thought about an

[00:01:34] David: Can I just interrupt here because I want, just make sure this context is clear for our listeners.

[00:01:40] Mike: Yeah.

[00:01:41] David: We talking about Kenya specifically.

[00:01:44] Mike: Right.

[00:01:45] David: Kenya is interesting because unlike other countries which are low resource environments or middle income countries, Kenya has more educated maths teachers than there are places.

This is a, this is an interesting distinction because in many places there are shortages of math teachers, but the Kenyan university system has been churning out math teachers, and so there’s a lot of qualified math teachers out there.

[00:02:13] Mike: And I’m one of the qualified math teachers because that’s exactly what I studied for.

[00:02:17] David: Absolutely. And this has been, I, we should give credit to the previous generation for this because there’s a whole generation of Kenyan mathematicians. We are of course, particularly indebted to Professor Omollo Ongati and and professor John Agure Ogonji. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And they… A whole generation, I suppose you also with the Kenyan Math Society, this was Ogange, wasn’t it, who was the real driving force behind that.

And so there’s a real history in Kenya, which has shown great success and has created a generation of maths teachers more than we are needed despite the large numbers of schools. And these maths teachers are often looking to progress. And this is what you mean when you are saying there’s always teachers looking to do MScs in mathematics or the mathematical sciences.

[00:03:18] Mike: That’s right. And I think the credit goes to again the change of curriculum to the 8 4 4 curriculum, which was now focusing on the STEM subjects. And so there was an emphasis on training STEM teachers, and math is central to STEM education, so that’s why we had a lot of interests in people doing math as a teaching subject.

And it’s one of the most popular programs across all universities. So you’re right when you say that there are lots of math teachers coming out of our universities every year and most teachers are looking to advance their academics. And the most natural way is to take a master’s program.

And in doing so the programs we have, you must physically be at a university as a full-time student and at the same time be a teacher. Yeah, go ahead.

[00:04:11] David: There, there are weekend courses as well. Many of the universities offer, in towns weekend courses and so on, but there’s always these constraints because you are doing it part-time. But the course is designed as a full-time degree.

[00:04:24] Mike: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:04:26] David: And there’s no scholarships, basically. And we have known scholarships occasionally.

When I first arrived in Maseno, there was this amazing set of students because they had a set of scholarships, and so it was amazing. We got very good students straight out of the undergraduate doing this, doing their masters, but that’s rare.

[00:04:44] Mike: Very rare. Yes. I was one of the beneficiaries of that scholarship. It was basically a graduate assistantship. It was stopped because of funding constraints. The benefit of having that scholarship is that universities are able to retain their best students to do the MScs. The current situation that’s there, it is about who can afford, so you can get some of the very best students can’t afford progress with their MSc while those who can afford and sometimes are not so brilliant. Again, they’re applying to do the MSc and somehow we have to give them a program that suits their need. And we realized that mathematics MSc is not ideal for that because it needs some level of commitment, it needs some level of dedication and basically you have to be slightly sharp enough to keep up with the concepts.

And so the traditional MScs we have in mathematics or even other STEM subjects are not ideal because of the situation the teachers find themselves in.

[00:05:51] David: I can give some very concrete personal examples of this. Which not only showed the limitations I had applied statistics master students who even after their coursework, which had included for my courses, computer based statistical analysis, would still pay someone at a cyber cafe to type up their thesis rather than type it themselves because their computer literacy was so low.

And what is so interesting is two such students produced the best ever MSc projects that I supervised. They were incredible because they weren’t necessarily brilliant as mathematicians, but they were extremely conscientious. They were hardworking. They knew what they wanted. One was actually in climate change and the other was in education itself.

And this is…you know, so it is not that these students who are maybe not as, you put it as sharp or as digitally literate or as ready to take on the, if you want, traditional academic roots don’t have value. They have immense value, and if only there could be a master’s program which was tailored to the whole range of students.

[00:07:08] Mike: Right.

[00:07:09] David: Then we, we could have some incredible outcomes. This is part of the hypothesis.

[00:07:15] Mike: And I know the work you did with the two students you are mentioning and there was a lot of innovation that was able to bring their brilliance even though they are not that intellectually brilliant, but they were able to do something amazing. Because the innovation you had with their projects allowed them to develop in different ways.

And that’s what we are envisioning our MSc program to be able to do that. You don’t have to be academically brilliant. You don’t have to be a genius. But there’s something you can be able to do at your place of work that can contribute to the body of knowledge and actually improve yourself at your place of work.

[00:07:54] David: and, you specifically know about this because one of them, their MSc was on assessment and statistics and all the work you’ve been doing on Stack, which we’ve discussed in other episodes

[00:08:08] Mike: Yes.

[00:08:09] David: has… is a consequence of the learnings I had from that student. It was, this is the, we can trace a lot of it back to his work, which was so insightful for me.

I can just say for the other, the other student, it was actually this idea of looking at the perceptions versus reality of climate change and almost all our work in climate builds from that understanding which was gained from that student. And these two students who didn’t have great digital literacy at that point in time, slowly built up skills and did an incredible piece of work.

And this is the power which is dormant in some sense within Kenya because all these, this generation of teachers are wanting to progress. They’re wanting to do this, but they don’t have the programs to enable them to shine.

[00:09:05] Mike: That’s true. And again some of them, the reasons for wanting to do them as a an MSc might not be focused enough. They just want to do it for promotion and so they don’t actually invest so much into the program. And that’s why most of them struggle, because if you come back to do a math MSc, there’s a lot of investment you have to put in to be able to do well. And most of them struggle, but

[00:09:34] David: just clarify what you mean by struggle, because at Maseno University, which is your university, which we both know well, there’s a backlog of more than 50 MSc students who have not completed their project despite completing their coursework many years ago.

[00:09:51] Mike: So actually making a transition between academic coursework and research is a bit of a problem. And the program we are envisioning which is almost being approved by the Commissioner of University Education, has this component where they’re not like separate entities. The coursework you’re doing is actually guiding you through the research you’re going to do.

And the beauty is that you are doing all this most likely at your place of employment. So there’s no disconnect and you are able to improve yourself. You’re able to innovate which means you become a better person at work while at the same time contributing to knowledge. And hopefully it won’t be a struggle as such because you are not expected to… How do I put it? Recall all the math you studied? At the university.

But it’s something that gradually builds the students. So there are different pathways in the program depending on the interest the student has. So this flexibility, hope that will help the students make an informed decision.

So it won’t yeah, it won’t, it’ll no longer be about. ‘Let me just get an MC for promotion’, but ‘how can I improve myself? How can I improve what I’m doing at my place of work? How can I enjoy the journey through the MSC and not struggle as such?’ Yeah, you want to say something?

[00:11:24] David: I think you know, what you are saying is idealistic. I hope this occurs, but. What you haven’t mentioned is what is it that really differentiates it? Because the university that’s actually launching this is one of the big differentiating factors.

[00:11:40] Mike: We thought about different places where the MSc program could be implemented. Initially it was Maseno because it had an e-campus. We were envisioning an online program for flexibility and for most people to contribute to the program: to the teaching and supervision. So our initial thoughts would have it at Maseno University because they had and they still have an e-campus.

Then other universities came in strongly with the interest. We had the Masinde Muliro University, which was also extremely interested. Recently KC was also very interested. Strathmore expressed some interest at some point. University of Nairobi were thinking about it, but and this is, this goes back 10 years when we were conceptualizing the program.

So at the time we didn’t have the Open University. So just recently, two years ago we, Kenya, created and launched a fully virtual university, the Open University of Kenya. And they’re looking to partner with the interested parties across the globe to contribute to their programs to contribute to mentoring students.

And we felt that this was an ideal place to have that program because of the willingness to collaborate with people, not just at the Open University, but across board which is something we, which could not be realized,

[00:13:07] David: It’s more than that. It’s more than that. Let me come in with a couple of details on this.

This interest from different universities. This got to the stage where within each of these universities, they were still thinking of it as a normal MSc program. A two year program, first year, second year in that way. The Open University already had the concept of these part-time degrees, this idea of a modular program.

[00:13:35] Mike: Yes.

[00:13:35] David: Which is exactly the intention here. The intention here is to make this available across the country as a modular program. And so that was a really big differentiator and one of the reasons I was extremely excited when you put forward the Open University as a route to do this. And the other thing the Open University has is that as the, if you want … purely remote because that’s what they conceive, version of the degree…

[00:14:09] Mike: Yep.

[00:14:10] David: …in theory, they’re not in competition with other universities. Maseno, Masinde Muliro, any others, offering a face-to-face version. And this is one of the things of being able to have these open educational resources that can be given by multiple institutions.

[00:14:27] Mike: Yeah.

[00:14:28] David: Starting with a nationwide program, which the Open University runs, but then individual universities to be able to say, we can give a better version because we can just give it to those who can access our lecturers and our training, and actually give a face to face component. And so we can have this concept that this open degree, and this is absolutely consistent with the Open University, with what they want, with the fact they’re very happy that the resources which we are co-developing with them are all open educational resources.

They can be taken up by other institutions. This is, I think this is real visionary stuff from the Open University, and my hope for the Open University is that this could actually be similar to what happened in the UK. In the UK, the Open University, when it first launched, it actually had some very good mathematicians who got involved and one of the very successful programs was the mathematics program.

And that helped to make and to build the credibility and the reputation of the Open University as being this very high quality degree awarding institution. And this is something which we hope the same can happen for the open university in Kenya based on this master’s program, and this can be part of building that credibility.

It’s got, of course, other good programs, which it’s developing and so on. But this is a program which I believe is pale, it’s suited to the Open University, what it is, what it’s trying to do, and the role it is trying to fill within the Kenyan higher education ecosystem.

[00:16:09] Mike: You bring up a very interesting point that, in the UK was able to build its profile around the maths program. I think even the Open University in Kenya needs to build its profile around some program, which it’ll be identified as being the premier university that offers that program.

There, there are some aspects you’ve brought up. The aspect of the modular format of the program, and this is something that’s extremely popular with the potential students that I talked to and even recently I was talking to some teachers and some members of an organization just explaining the flexibility the program offers.

And I think for teachers, the modular aspect that I can just pay for one module because I can afford it. Or I can pay for one module ’cause I have time for only one module. It’s extremely popular with them that you’re not forced to do four modules, which is the requirement of the traditional universities that I can actually study at my own pace until such a time when I’m ready to take on more work or I can reduce the work I have.

So that’s something the Open University is extremely good at. Then there’s the aspect of not being in competition with other universities. And I think this also sets apart the Open University because you’re not competing with anyone. So no one is looking. You don’t have to restrict the programs you have.

Just so that other people don’t benefit from them; you’re not in competition. So making them open works well for the Open University, and that’s something that might not have worked with traditional universities, because for them they’ll want to take ownership of the, of the program and the material they’ll not be open to sharing. And this would’ve created a problem because the…

[00:17:57] David: let me be clear on this because this may not be obvious, but the Open University, because it is the only university offering this modular approach for part-time degrees. There is, it doesn’t have that as competition. So other universities offering face-to-face versions of the program different in different places, that’s just like advertising for their modular version.

And so it is just enhancing their reputation, but they already have that differentiator that if you want that part-time modular approach and you are happy with remote learning, they are the only show in town.

[00:18:36] Mike: Right.

[00:18:37] David: The other universities, and we see this with other campuses. Especially once you get into big cities like Kisumu or Nairobi, you just have, every university has their own campus trying to compete on the same sorts of degrees.

And so there is this real competition then for students who are place-based, particularly in urban areas, and therefore you have that competition between those universities to who can offer the better education in some sense, get the better reputation within that competitive space. And so those two things are together are really the heart of what you were explaining, that

[00:19:20] Mike: Yes.

[00:19:21] David: the Open University, partly because it’s new and it’s filling this sort of empty space, it can afford to be collaborative. And because it’s collaborative, it’s going, this, the program itself is so much better. It’s got real talent that’s worked on it.

[00:19:39] Mike: Yeah.

[00:19:40] David: It isn’t the Open University staff who have had to take the burden of developing the whole program. They’ve been able to get all sorts of people like yourself, like IDEMS, like all sorts of collaborators to contribute.

And that means the program itself is really exciting. It’s got industry links if you want. It’s got people who are actually using the mathematics, developing the courses so that they actually help. At the other end, as well as having people like yourself who are well established within the Kenyan Maths Society, driving it forward.

[00:20:21] Mike: I, I think the richness of the program, as you rightly put it, is different experts from different environments contributing to the same program. Makes it extremely rich because you have different perspectives coming in. You have the international field, the program because there’s a lot of people from the international community.

You have experts from the region also contributing in different ways. At the moment the Open University doesn’t have the capacity to do it individually. So for them it’s a no brainer seeking these collaborations. And maybe we never explored, but maybe at the traditional universities, they will have tried to maybe have the capacity internally. And so we will not have heard the richness that comes from all these different collaborations coming in there.

[00:21:12] David: One thing there in the discussions with the Open University, one of the things they’ve been very strong on is that they want the local capacity to be built to give it.

[00:21:21] Mike: Yeah.

[00:21:22] David: They’re not talking just about their internal capacity. They are happy to have part-timers from the other universities being that part of that capacity, which is built, which is incredible because this is what then is really the strength of the program, that it is not confined to a single institution. It is bringing talent from across Kenya.

[00:21:44] Mike: Yes. So it’s, it is an exciting journey. It’s something, revolutionary. We’ve had to do a lot of explaining about the program at, for the Commission of University Education because they’ve not seen a program like this. There are different pathways, like I said, that gives different opportunities. You can, as a student, you can tailor your interest to a given pathway that enables you to build your strengths and not just do something because that’s what’s offered. So there’s a lot of flexibility in the program right from how it’s offered up to the point where students choose their interests in the lines of what they want to study.

[00:22:26] David: And I think we should go into the specific detail on how that’s been designed, but I think that’ll have to be the next episode. I want to finish this episode by really just getting a clear articulation of: you have talked to teachers, you have talked to potential, potential candidates for the program. What is it about it, which is making it so exciting for them? You’ve mentioned the modular aspect. Are there other elements of this that they’ve really grabbed onto?

[00:22:59] Mike: So there’s the modular aspects. Then there’s the flexibility of the program. In the sense that it’s fully online. And most teachers I’ve talked to, they’ll need to get a leave to study, and most teachers are of the opinion that they don’t want to take a leave from work; they want to continue studying even as they work.

So this has been a problem and this program offers exactly that because it’s modular, because it’s flexible, it’s fully online. You can study it from the comfort of your home or your office if you get a few hours. You can pay per module if you can afford it. So you don’t have to save before you enroll for the program.

Then there’s another aspect that there are these different pathways that will talk about later. So you can focus on the education aspects, if that’s your interest. You can focus on maybe a bit of data science, if that’s your interest. You can focus on maybe developing educational technologies, if that’s your interest.

So the whole array of different possibilities that students can do was extremely attractive to them. So they didn’t feel like I have to be confined to one thing, but maybe after doing a bit of the coursework I’ll find something that suits my interests at that time. So that was extremely a favourable aspect of the program for them.

[00:24:33] David: So can I just come in on this piece for one, because this is inspiration that’s been taken from AIMS as I understand it, that have this broad Masters. It was originally a postgraduate diploma and then became a master’s program, but which was not tied to a particular domain of mathematics and was deliberately eye-opening.

[00:24:54] Mike: Yes.

[00:24:54] David: So this is this inspiration of having that eye-opening part to the MSc program because many participants don’t know the direction they want to go when they come in, is something, which again, AIMS has been a big inspiration for this.

[00:25:13] Mike: Yes. Then another aspect that was extremely appealing to students was the project or the thesis that they were eventually going to do as part of the MSc program. So these are requirement by the Kenyan government or the education body that you must do either project or a thesis at the end of your MSc.

So most students are a bit nervous because they don’t know what to do when it comes to research what, when it comes to writing a thesis or a project. And so when we tell them that the project you’ll eventually do it’s in your best interest if that project is tied to your place of work.

If you are a teacher, you can design… or we… you can be assisted to design a project at your place of work. So you don’t have to think of a project at another place, but because you have a very good understanding of your place of work you are the one best placed to think of how things can be improved, whether it’s the teaching if you’re talking about data, how data is handled around your school. So you are the one who understands it best and it’s again, in your best interest if that is coming from you because you’re bringing change at your place of work. So your reputation improves. And when you’re writing for promotion, you can say that I improved these things at my place of work.

So it, it’s not just ‘I have an MSc’ but ‘I’ve done these improvements at my place of work’. And that appeals to them a great deal.

[00:26:53] David: When you conceive this idea of this mathematics innovation as a degree, it is this idea that this innovation should be practical. This is a, this is not purely theoretical. There is, there are streams which could lead to theoretical advances and PhDs in mathematics, but we are not expecting that for most people.

For most people, this degree is designed to be something which helps them where they are and which enables them to use the mathematics they learn, the educational concepts they learn, to innovate in their context. And that’s the, that is central to the whole degree program. It’s, as you’ve articulated, it is almost an expectation. It’s not a requirement, but we expect it from most projects.

[00:27:46] Mike: Yeah.

[00:27:46] David: And it’s very different to the current degrees in that sense, and again, this comes back to the Open University. The Open University has this mandate to be offering training for people in employment, which is relevant for them and their progression. So it’s perfect for the Open University.

[00:28:11] Mike: Exactly. And it is it’s a shame again in my universities because there’s a big disconnect between university education and industry. And the Open University is looking at bridging the gap between education and industry. And this program, again, is designed to, to do exactly that in different ways.

So you are student you are doing innovative things at your place of work. It might be an industry in a, in some company, because it’s not just for teachers it’s for, it is a broad program. And anyone can apply as long as you have some math, mathematics background. So I think that’s the only requirement to have some mathematics background.

And obviously you must satisfy the conditions to be admitted for an MSc program. It’s a program that’s designed to bridge the gap between university and industry in different ways. University education is supposed to lead to innovation in industry and its building capacity in the students to be able to do that.

Bringing together all these expertise to mentor the students to be able to actually have some innovation or contribute towards industry. My hope is that it will be a revolutionary program. I’m hoping that it will be extremely popular. I’m looking forward to the problem of having thousands of students and very few supervisors.

So that’s a problem that… it will be a success if we get into a situation where that’s the problem we have to address and maybe we can convince other people internationally to contribute to helping solve that problem.

[00:29:57] David: Well, your ambitions are admirible. Given that a successful master’s program would have maybe 20 students, this is a big leap, but who knows? Who knows? Because as you say, this is a program which is potentially of real value to in, in many domains, not least for teachers.

[00:30:21] Mike: Yeah. And one of, one of the reasons I actually came back from the US after doing my PhD was to contribute to the learning, the teaching and learning of mathematics. Which I feel there’s some gap in the training for teachers and I hope that being able to train teachers to be innovative in the teaching.

They could bring aspects that will improve mathematics students right from high school or even lower at primary schools all the way to the universities. And I’m hoping that we can help build the next generation of brilliant math students. I’m hoping that Kenya can take the lead in producing some of the best math educators through this program.

I’m a bit biased when it comes to education because that’s where my interests are. The other aspects of industry, data science, technology in the program. But my real passion is on the teaching. So I look forward to the next discussion about the different pathways in the program and how they can impact the society at large.

[00:31:28] David: Absolutely. This has been great. Thank you so much and I look forward to another discussion soon.

[00:31:34] Mike: Always a pleasure talking to you, David. Thank you so much.

[00:31:36] David: Thank you.