The University of Zululand has warned its students that the academic year might stretch to next year.
This is as the university was this week left behind as its peers proceeded with the resumption of their academic year online.
In a letter to students, the university’s top brass said while the institution’s contingency plans follow the sectoral approach as agreed on by all other universities, it will however adapt its approach to suit “our unique circumstances as an institution”.
“The university shall make a concerted endeavour to complete the academic year 2020 for all students – there is a possibility that the completion could be extended to year 2021,” reads the letter.
“In seeking to make provision for the unfolding reality, the university has been hard at work in ramping up the e-learning provision capability. In this regard, the university is alive to the fact that our students’ online participation rate was low at the start.”
The university is led by Xoliswa Mtose as vice-chancellor, with popular political analyst, Sipho Seepe, part of its executive management team.
Madoda Ntshangase, secretary of the SRC, said they were hoping that the minister of higher education will provide the way forward when he addresses the media tomorrow [Monday].
“There have been many challenges with regards to the Moodle [a free and open-source learning management system] system used by the university for e-learning.
“Most of our students reside in deep rural areas where network connections are a problem,” Ntshangase said. A second-year bachelor of education student, who wished to remain anonymous, said the university was falling behind other universities in supporting its students.
“Other institutions have been communicating with students for a long time.
“Trial and error methods have been on the go since day one of the lockdown. By now, they have mastered good relevant e-learning methods,” the student said.
The struggles faced by University of Zululand students belie the gap between more resourced universities and some historically black institutions.
Some of the country’s bluechip institutions – Wits, University of Stellenbosch, University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria and University of KwaZulu-Natal – all resumed their academic year via online platforms on Monday backed by deals they had secured from big mobile companies that offered to provide free data to all the students.
These universities have also created schemes that allow their students to borrow the necessary gadgets to be able to access the online teaching and learning platforms.
