CHALLENGES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING COMPUTER PROGRAMMING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: LESSONS FROM TUMAINI UNIVERSITY

Computer programming is a difficult course to teach and learn, it is even more difficult in developing countries that are faced with additional factors in its academic, socioeconomic and natural environment that affects the teaching and learning of this course. The difficulties are notably marked in the poor performance and high failure rate. The difficulties were identified to be attributed to poor pedagogical methods, university tradition, poor study methods of learners, lack of problem solving abilities, low self-efficacy and of course programming is a new field of study. Several approaches were implemented but with very little impact. This paper therefore focuses on exploring the difficulties of the learners and suggests several innovative approaches that are feared towards improving the teaching and learning of this course.