Students wrestle with online learning
Learning during a global pandemic is an uphill battle for many university students – from not having access to the technology they need to access resources to mental-health struggles sparked by loneliness.
Sehlomeng Sefali starts off describing her experience of learning during lockdown by relating how she felt at the time: anxious, overwhelmed and lonely. Her June examinations were drawing near and she was unprepared. With no laptop, smartphone or WiFi for part of the year, she had been struggling to learn remotely.
For Sefali, much was lost when campus life was interrupted because of the onset of Covid-19. Like many first-year students, she had had plans.
“It stole our chances of making friends; of exploring. I didn’t have a first year at all,” she told DM168.
Sefali’s experience of studying during the Covid-19 pandemic mirrors that of thousands of other higher-education students across South Africa.
reached out to students through the JustKidding Instagram account, asking them to share their experiences of studying online. The response was overwhelming.
Students interviewed from universities across the country said that the implications of remote learning – the distance they felt from their peers, the lack of resources and the little to no time spent in lecture halls – continued to hinder their quality of learning.
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in March last year, higher-education institutions were abruptly forced to alter their methods of teaching and learning. And so began the online-education conundrum.
The strategy of emergency remote learning, which had to be implemented by South African universities, meant that for much of the 2020 academic year, students were expected to learn from home, accessing study material through online portals.
Some have found learning online to be beneficial, citing an increase in free time that came with the deviation from the strict regimen of being on campus.
But the vast majority of students have encountered myriad obstacles. From struggling to understand assignments and having an unsuitable and distracting learning environment to not having stable internet access, the challenges for students have been immense.
But the disaster has been lopsided and unequal. Operating online had a disproportionately negative effect on students from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds, especially those who did not have easy access to technology.
And, over a year into the pandemic, not much has changed.
At the start of the 2021 academic year, many higher-education institutions opted for a blended-learning approach, which meant that a certain number of students could return to campus for limited, physically distanced classes.
But as Covid-19 once again tightens its grip as the Third Wave gains momentum, universities are shifting back online, barring some in-person exams.
A spike in misconduct cases in 2020, directly related to online exams and tests at institutions, is one reason behind the push for in-person exams.
There was an increase in cheating in online assessments last year, said both Prof Lis Lange, the deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Martin Viljoen, spokesperson for Stellenbosch University.
Several higher-education institutions also recorded an overall increase in students’ module pass rates and marks in 2020, compared to the previous year.
“The performance of students has remained steady over the past year, in line with the trends of previous years. Overall, there has been a small improvement in student performance,” said Shirona Patel, spokesperson for the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).
Nelson Mandela University (NMU) also noted that 2020 had been one of the institution’s most “successful” years academically.
Thwarted
Sefali, now a second-year student at Stellenbosch University, is just one of thousands of students who was thwarted in her studies by a lack of access to technology.
When she was forced out of her university accommodation and back into her family home in Kraaifontein in March last year, she struggled to complete her online assignments and attend online classes on her aunt’s smartphone.
She had no laptop or WiFi and, as she thought her stay at home would be brief, she had left her textbooks at her accommodation on campus.
“At that time I had nothing – I think I only had my two books with me,” she said.
To get back into her accommodation to fetch her books required extensive admin and, by the time Sefali was able to collect them, it was July. She had already had to write some examinations without her books.
In April 2020, Stellenbosch University announced that socioeconomically disadvantaged students could apply to loan a laptop from the institution to assist them with their online education.
“I applied for a laptop, but I struggled to get one because I stay in a township,” Sefali said. “The delivery people couldn’t find my house and said they didn’t feel safe in the area, so they left.”
After much correspondence, she eventually met the delivery company at a local school to receive her device. But Sefali’s technical troubles did not end there.
Most higher-education institutions provided students with monthly data bundles. Stellenbosch gave students in need 30GB of data (10GB during the day and 20GB at night).
But, said Sefali, “this was not enough”. She described how she would sometimes have to wake up after midnight to study using her night-time data allocation.
“I didn’t even have money. I didn’t have money for food, so I couldn’t even afford to buy my own data – 30GB was never enough,” she said.
Sefali said she didn’t know how to use a laptop properly, which also prevented her from working effectively online.
Having been taught only the basics during her computer-skills module, Sefali said she found it difficult to submit tests and assignments within the given time period.
“Now I’m doing my second year, yet I know nothing about my first-year modules, some of which I am repeating because of online learning,” she explains.
“For some people, it was fair, but for other people like me, it was not. I believe that if I was on campus, I would have done better.”
The value of the physical lecture hall, especially for students with inadequate working environments, cannot be overstated.
“No higher-education institution has the power to change the socioeconomic conditions in which students live. And the structural inequality of the country has served students in implacable ways since the start of the pandemic,” said UCT’s Lange.
Sefali said her home in Kraaifontein was not conducive to online learning. For six months, she had to study in a one-bedroom household, which she shared with seven other family members.
“I was forced to be there,” she said. “I was forced to adapt to the situation.”
When she returned to her campus accommodation on 1 September last year, she thought the change in location would assist her learning. But, for Sefali, the loneliness of her residence room was almost unbearable.
Being a chronic asthma sufferer meant strictly following Covid-19 protocols and she was forced to keep her distance from her peers. “I was in my room, not allowed to go out, to see friends,” she said. “I still had no motivation.”
I didn’t even have money. I didn’t have money for food, so I couldn’t even afford to buy my own data – 30GB was never
enough
A spike in misconduct cases in 2020, directly related to online exams and tests at institutions, is one reason behind the push for
in-person exams
Shared struggle
What Sefali was experiencing was a shared struggle. Out of her friendship circle of four, she is the only one who has continued with her studies this year.
Trapped between the technological burdens of an online education and the financial hardships of the lockdown, her friends decided that studying was no longer a viable option.
“My friends, they were struggling the same,” she said.
Along with most other higher-education institutions, Stellenbosch University did not reduce tuition costs in 2020.
The university has, however, attempted to ease its students’ financial struggles by reducing the increase of the annual tuition and accommodation fee for the 2021 academic year. Stellenbosch’s tuition fees increased by 3.66% for both undergraduate and postgraduate students in 2021, as opposed to the 4.7% increase proposed by Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, said Viljoen.
Other institutions such as Wits and UCT have not charged students for non-tuition services that were not rendered in the 2020 academic year.
This year, despite attending in-person classes twice a week, Sefali said that “nothing has changed” regarding the quality of her learning. June exams are drawing near and, again, she feels she is not prepared.
Continuing her second year in BA development and environmental studies, her workload is full with three additional modules carried over from last year.
“Now it’s exam time, [and] I’m not writing. I’m not writing at all. All I know is that I’m not ready,” she said.