The African School of Economics (ASE) is continuing to train its students in spite of the Coronavirus pandemic. Courses are being given online to allow the students to complete the academic year. Further measures are in progress to facilitate the process for students and teachers in this exemplary school.
One of the rare universities in the sub-region to rapidly transition to distance learning in response to the public health crisis, ASE has made several supports available online for its learners. Ultimately, seminars and conferences are given online via the Zoom application. These measures extend to members of the personnel, who now hold their meetings via the same application. These practical arrangements are designed to respect measures taken by the Beninese government and the WHO in the battle against COVID-19. For some time already, the IT department and the Communication department has been working to design an application specific to ASE and better adapted to online learning.
Costs and Perspectives:
Online courses do not cost much more than normal for African School of Economics, according to Professor Sam Aguey, Dean of Graduate Studies. “The structure had two employees who arranged the high-volume connection on the campus, in the offices, and in the building premises; the supplementary costs are logistical in scale,” he explained. ASE is reinforcing and enhancing its IT equipment to allow students of limited means to come to campus to access the online classes via the material and the internet connection in the IT room. Nevertheless, IT is conscious of the individual costs in all that concerns the connectivity of students and teachers.
Since its implementation, this measure has been applauded by the student body and by ASE’s partners. This is what, Sam Aguey believes, motivates Professor Leonard Wantchekon (President of African School of Economics) to maintain this arrangement in the future. In this manner, students from all countries will be able to benefit from the top training offered by ASE in the fields of economics, statistics, mathematics, technology, and economics. This arrangement will also allow instructors from all over the world to more easily organize their attendance in courses, seminars and workshops without being obliged to travel.
