Varsities should consult students

IT IS comprehensible that our education sector is facing extraordinary times due to Covid-19 and there is a need to adapt for the completion of the academic year. Universities of South Africa (USAf) is said to have put forward the framework that suggests different scenarios on what must happen next.

This includes proposals that universities shall open on June 1 and complete the year semester on December 24, which will be 27 weeks. The other proposal suggests August 1 to February 28 2021.

They further suggest that universities will use online/alternative teaching and learning delivery mechanisms after April 2020.

This sounds good, and it is plausible, but if it is not inclusive of all involved stakeholders it will cause more confusion and will lead to a disaster.

For example, Unisa has announced that they have taken a decision to email May/June 2020 exams to students and students will have to write these exams and submit them online. This happens without Unisa having conducted any survey to check on students’ readiness to adapt to this.

Surely lots of students who have no means to adapt to these new changes will fail this semester?

The reality is that in South Africa, our students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds do not have access to expensive data, not to mention all the necessary gadgets like laptops.

This online teaching and learning will expose even more the gaps between the rich and the poor in South Africa.

If these decisions are taken without considering the realities South Africa’s youth in townships and rural areas are facing, we are then heading for disaster.

I dare to say these decisions will then only be an extension of the inequalities in our country instead of being the immediate and needed solutions as those who head them may want to believe.

STHEMBISO KA SHANDU | Former TUT SRC vice-president, Soshanguve Campus. He writes in his own capacity as a social and student activist