Turn social distancing into distance learning for good

Professor Harry Sewlall’s letter, “What was a chore is now a learning life raft” (April 12), prompts me to ask: isn’t it about time all universities became distance learning institutions?

The lockdown is a timely interruption to the mindless devastation that a minority of students are causing to our institutions of higher learning. Many of the students’ complaints are rooted in justifiable grounds for grievances, but the extent to which they go to have their concerns heard is unacceptable. No sane person can support the burning, destruction and pillaging of buildings and learning spaces, not to mention the assaults on innocent people — rather than resorting to the proper channels of communication available to them.

One wonders whether the bad behaviour of some of our parliamentarians has its roots in the “protest” actions so common in universities these days. The majority of students who want to get on with work are denied this right through the actions of a few.

When I studied for my BA and BEd through Unisa in the mid-1980s, I was a full-time educator. There was no Google or the computers as we know them today. We worked with typewriters, but somehow we got our work done. We used to look forward to our occasional vacation meetings with lecturers and studiously followed instructions, knowing full well that failure meant the wastage of valuable funds. There was no National Student Financial Aid Scheme to bail us out.

We worked with study guides that came to us by post, and we had to visit the university library for references. When I sat for my master’s in 2000, we were lucky to have access to the university’s computer facilities, though it took me a long time to get the hang of the intricacies, like the mouse/mice/mouses. This had to be done after our teaching sessions, but we persevered.

So the study guides mentioned by professor Sewlall resonate strongly with me. They were an invaluable source of guidance, in the absence of lecturers.

You may well ask: “But what happens to lecturers, student accommodation, funding for fees, food and transport, as well as empty hostel facilities, if we follow your idea?”

My short answer is that the higher education brains trust can get down to some serious brainstorming to work out the logistics to get our country back on track with regard to serious tertiary education. We have wasted enough time and resources trying to pacify and mollify students who are bent on killing time and having fun (not all, admittedly).

Peru Naidu, Ballito juicy scandals about pastors. Rather, they imagine such scandals and search for scapegoats even during a crisis.

Khotso KD Moleko, Mangaung