Colleges and universities across South Africa have moved lectures online in a bid to save the academic year. But learning via the internet has exposed the digital divide between students who have access to hardware and stable internet connections and those who struggle with both.
“For students who don’t have resources and who are always hearing the dominant narrative about ‘saving the academic year’, they are struggling and the focus on completing the year overshadows a focus on wellness,” said Asanda Benya, a senior lecturer at UCT and a member of the Covid-19 Higher Education Working Group and the National Alliance Group.
Recently, the Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, said students on the national financial aid scheme would receive free data and laptops “to ensure that no student is left behind”.
Although some students have received data, many haven’t. The procurement of laptops is happening through an open tender system, and Nzimande has asked the public for patience while this process is under way. In the meantime, however, many of the most vulnerable students are falling behind and may not recover the lost time.
“I’m constantly behind with my studies and I spend so much time catching up,” said Onkgopotse Modisane, 23, an honours student from the University of Johannesburg (UJ).
Modisane’s laptop crashed, but because of the Covid-19 lockdown, he was unable to access computer labs. He has been using his phone to look up sources and type his proposal and other assignments.
For Modisane, lectures given over the online meeting platform Zoom are not effective. “The disadvantage is that due to poor connectivity, they just cut in the middle of the lecture. Sometimes the audio is not audible.”
Some students are receiving lecture material on the radio.
Lesego Nawa, 22, from Mahikeng in North West, is studying at Taletso TVET College, in her second year of the national certificate vocational programme. The institution has opted to broadcast lessons using radio platforms. But these interventions are not providing the kind of support necessary to take in complex material.
“There is no kind of support I’m receiving from the campus except radio lessons, which didn’t work for me. I took it upon myself that I’m going to study on my own.
Yandiswa Galeni, 22, from Nqamakwe near Butterworth in the Eastern Cape, is an Honours student at UWC. She says a shortage of data meant she’s been unable to submit her assignments on time. She also battled with a lack of productivity during the lockdown. Given the chance, Galeni says, she would return to the UWC residence for the consistent wi-fi.
But it is not only students who are suffering. Lecturers also battle with online learning platforms.
“Staff are not supported with tools to help them work online. The assumption is that we live in environments conducive to teaching yet that’s not the case,” said Benya. “Teaching online takes a lot more time, requires different strategies and methods, and we are having to learn this on our feet with very little or no training. At UCT, we were only trained for five hours. At other institutions, no training was offered. Some are only now being trained, after weeks of remote learning roll-out.”
Through her work at the Covid-19 Higher Education Working Group, Benya has noticed that although problems differ across institutions, one thing remains the same: everyone is struggling.
“What we all agree on is that the remote online learning system is not working for us and our students.”
Many students are being left behind, she says. Social inequalities are widened when students have to cope with a lack of resources.
The Public Pedagogy Group and Black Academic Caucus at UCT have proposed alternatives to online learning, including reworking the academic year’s calendar, says Benya.
“The point is, there are numerous alternatives and we need to engage with them, rework them, change the calendar if need be. But we must not put a curriculum and an academic calendar before lives, and also not worsen the already high socio-economic curve as we flatten the Covid-19 curve.”
Benya says if students don’t have resources, infrastructure, support and the necessary environment to engage online, the quality of the institution won’t matter: recipients will not learn.
“What they are not telling parents and students is that professors have received little training. Professors are struggling in some instances to transition to online teaching. What some are doing is to simply put slides and readings online and leave the students to figure out the rest. While there is some support, it is not extensive and it does not cater to the wide range of learning needs our students have right now.”
“Remote learning is not manageable if you do not have equipment and data,” said Imameleng Masitha, 30, from Khayelitsha in Cape Town. She used her cellphone to complete academic work at Unisa.
Unable to cope, she has since stopped her studies. “I dropped out during Covid-19 when the connection was poor and emails would take at least two to three days to get responses.”
Many higher education staff members are also working with students to make sure they have the basics, including food and toiletries, to survive the pandemic, says Benya.
“So the challenges of online or remote teaching during a pandemic like this one are not just about the teaching, they are also about the home environment and circumstances in which students are at. We cannot pretend that education happens in a bubble. We are here to build communities of learning and that is impossible with a limited option of migrating courses to be online.”
For Nosipho Ntombela, 20, a third-year student from the Tshwane University of Technology, learning at home has affected her study patterns. She is battling to adapt to the change of environment from the residence in which she stayed to studying at home in Empangeni, KwaZulu-Natal, with her grandparents and siblings.
“The home environment is not the same as a residence, where I am used to having a study desk, my room. By contrast, at home, we share the space.”
Ntombela also struggles with connectivity. “My phone is small and the storage is a problem when I have to download stuff. I have signal problems. I have to go outside to try and connect.”
Benya said” “We spend several hours and much time finding out which students cannot access online platforms.
“This takes time, resources and it is still not enough. Some students are being left behind for reasons not of their own doing. They will end up carrying a huge debt and the personal and financial burden of being considered dropouts
or failures.”