Students and transition from face-to-face to online learning in South African higher education institutions: lessons from Covid-19.

Abstract

Many nations have been alerted to the need to improve their capacity to provide widespread online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a developing country, South Africa faced difficulties to resort in online education since most of its public higher education institutions have been for a long time conducted face to face lessons. During the hard lockdown which was experienced since March 2020, higher education institutions (HEIs) closed their campuses, ending decades of in-person instruction. To save the academic year, South African higher education institutions had to adopt the online learning system and digitally transform. Reputable universities such as the University of South Africa (UNISA) and the University of Cape Town (UCT) led this digital transformation as they were already accustomed to offering lessons online and strongly support distance learning. This paper applies a qualitative document analysis (QDA) whereby existing literature was used to collate existing data. The study finds that the transition from face-to-face learning to digital learning platforms brought some positive prospects in the world of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). However, there have been challenges associated with this transition which in most were faced by African students coming from economically challenged backgrounds. Problems such as acquiring laptops, data for connectivity, and siblings and parents disturbing the time for online learning at home. It is concluded that the move to a blended learning form is vital for the educational landscape in South Africa. This would ensure that the HEIs in the country move with the digital transformation and embraces the notion of artificial intelligence in the 4IR era.