College of Medicine and TNM have partnered to offer 10 GB of data per student, and access to more than 10,000 books on BUKU`s- digital library platform to its students.
College of Medicine principal Dr Mwapatsa Mipando has lauded the telecoms giant for this gesture saying it will go a long way in enabling students to continue learning as they will now have access to the study materials.
“Our negotiations with TNM yielded fruit as the telecom company has accepted to offer 10 GB at a very affordable rate and access to BUKU platform, which provides access to more than 10,000 books at any time anywhere,” said Mipando.
He added that the partnership will facilitate the resumption of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) the university stopped three weeks ago.
“Following the closure of schools due to the novel Coronavirus, College of Medicine started ERT in June but few weeks after the implementation we noted that up to 60 percent of students could not manage due to the lack of resources.
“We applaud TNM for this special offer because we will be able to resume the online teaching. I now urge our students and lecturers to take advantage of this opportunity,” he said.
The partnership enables TNM plc to apply mobile Internet technology as a catalyst for economic development through assistance to the tertiary education sector.
Furthermore, it will benefit a learning institution at the very heart of research and education aimed to alleviate the suffering of Malawians from various diseases, including COVID-19.
“At TNM we believe that all Malawian’s deserve the benefit of high-quality digital education. Apart from increasing much-needed digital learning, we are also currently working on a number of other affordable offers to keep students connected, details of which will be made available in the coming days,” said Michiel Buitelaar, TNM’s Chief Executive Officer.
Launching the partnership, the Minister of Education, honorable Agnes Nyalonje applauded TNM and College of Medicine for the initiative that ensures students have access to world class academic literature.
“The current COVID-19 Pandemic has hit the Education sector hardest. With all manner of learning institutions closed and many have not been attending schools or universities. Let me commend College of Medicine for taking the lead to work with TNM and BUKU to help the students acquire world class education amid the deadly coronavirus,” said Nyalonje.
According to BUKU CFO Jeff van der Laan BUKU is honored and excited to contribute in this endeavor.
“This project will pave the way for digitizing higher education not only in Malawi, but in the rest of Africa as well – making access to high quality textbooks a reality for all students on the continent,” said van der Laan.
BUKU is the ‘Netflix for textbooks’ with over 10,000 eBooks available (over 100 books added every month) from premier international publishers such as Cambridge University Press. The mission of BUKU is to make textbooks available for all students worldwide.
The service would work exactly like Netflix, where students pay a monthly subscription fee to get access to unlimited access to this growing library through smartphones, tablets & computers.
In addition, BUKU supports online and offline modes so that students can access books even without internet.
