Strategies for marketing of The bachelor of education arts Programme in department of Educational studies, school of Continuing and distance education, University of nairobi, kenya. (bed. Arts)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The establishment of many new Public and Private Universities has brought with it stiff competition for students in programmes similar to those offered by the Department of Educational Studies. The programme facing the stiffest competition in the Department is Bachelor of Education (Arts) which has been mounted by most of the new universities. Such competition would normally cause a reduction in student enrollment unless mitigating measures are taken. In the case of the Bachelor of Education (Arts) programme in the Department, student enrollments appear to have dropped slightly. It is therefore important to consider strategies that can be used to maintain our competitive edge. The strategies that should be considered include review of the stage at which application fee is charged on prospective students, distribution of brochures in Primary Schools, use of JAB lists of unsuccessful applicants, decentralization of residential tuition sessions and assessment to selected regional Centres, hiring of academic and administrative staff and attaching them to Regional Centres where decentralized Residential Sessions are housed, printing of Study Units and issuing to students in time, equipping of Regional Centres with computers and Internet connectivity, uploading of all study materials on e-learning platform and training students on how to access, use of electronic library resources, electronic instruction by use of e-learning multimedia platform, facilitation of examination marking process and timely release of results, aggressive marketing at UoN - ISO 9001:2008 Certified 15 Regional Centres and Sub-Centres during study field visits, branding of Regional Centres to reflect image of the University, engaging paid agents to carry out recruitment of students in various regions, charging competitive fees. When these strategies are implemented in a well coordinated and structured way, the B.Ed (Arts) programme will continue to be vibrant. It will also attract more and more students from within and outside the country and become one of the biggest programmes in the University since demand for teachers will continue to rise in sub-Saharan Africa for many years to come.