The Role of Technology in Monitoring Inter-institutional Lecturers’ Teaching Workload in Kenya

Abstract

The teaching profession has one of the highest numbers of workforce grappling with unmanageable workload. Excessive lecturers’ workload causes adverse effects to both employer and employee. Lecturers are assigned lectures in multiple independent learning institutions and there is no platform to foster interuniversity communication regarding the shared lecturers’ employment state, tenure and lecturing obligations. The Commission for University Education has guidelines set to limit the maximum lecturer workload and yet there is no way to monitor inter institution lecturers’ teaching workload. There’s the need to employ technology to address this problem. Existing models have no capability to monitor cross-campus lecturers’ workload, they rather concentrate on the business aspect of automating scheduling of lectures, tutor recruitment. Triangulation methodology was used to conduct this study while proof of concept methodology was applied to develop the model. Research questions were answered through engaging industry experts in a validation exercise. Feedback received indicated that the model would be an efficient tool in safeguarding lecturers against burnout arising from unmanageable workload. Management, human and technical challenges are anticipated during the adoption phase of the model. Further research should be undertaken to develop models to monitor a lecturer’s inter-institution teaching workload using identified alternative quantifiable attributes.