WHAT OTHER STUDENTS ARE SAYING ABOUT REMOTE LEARNING
“Covid-19 has been hard on everybody at university, but like always, neuro-atypical people have had it even worse.
For those of us with learning difficulties who found it challenging before the pandemic, university has become nearly impossible, and that has had a huge affect on our mental health.” Beatrix Borchers, third-year student
at Stellenbosch University
“I feel like the university’s response to Covid-19 has been very inadequate. Last year, we were in emergency remote teaching that limited our work hours, and everything was online, we didn’t really have in-person assessments and we had to do everything from home.
This year, they just changed the acronym – now it’s physically distanced learning instead of emergency remote teaching. The workload is much more, [and] there’s no extra support.” Ethan Coetzee, second-year student
at the University of Cape Town
“At first I enjoyed it a bit because I could set my own schedule. But as it progressed, I think, losing that structure that [university] gives you made it a bit more difficult.
Being at home ... my disturbances are quite frequent compared to when I was actually on campus.”
Njabulo Mabena, third-year student at the University of the Witwatersrand
“This year is a bit better because I got used to it from last year, and found last year quite difficult. [Last year], we only attended on-campus lectures for the first two months because the lockdown
came and we had to go online. At first this was a struggle because I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t have people to help me.” Andile Shezi, second-year student at the University of Johannesburg
“The transition for me from in-person classes towards online learning was surprisingly smooth.
I’m someone who really liked going to class, I like the interaction with other people, so I was worried when everything transitioned... I was very worried about the transition process and how it would affect my studies but at this point in time it really does feel normal to me, after a year-and-a-half of online learning.” René Esterhuyse, music master’s at
Stellenbosch University