The current study sought to establish perceptions of lecturers and Peer Assistant Learning (PAL) Tutors on students' phubbing at a rural university in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The study adopted the quantitative approach in which a survey was employed. A sample of 50 academics that consisted of 39 lecturers from a population of 71 and 11 PAL Tutors from a population of 14 voluntarily completed the survey. A structured 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was used for the data collection. The researchers captured the data manually into Statistical Package for Social Sciences and they were analysed using descriptive statistics. The study found that majority of lecturers and PAL Tutors had a negative perception on students' phubbing in classroom. It was strongly confirmed that students were addicted to cell phones. Around 0%-20% of the students were phubbing by doing different activities in classroom which was more enough for the whole learning and teaching to be spoiled. Overall, phubbing created a serious interruption to lecturers, PAL Tutors as well as the whole class and this implicated the study to highlight that students were crossing the boundary line. This study also provided recommendations to the educators and management to minimize phubbing inside classroom.

Background. COVID-19 is a highly dangerous Coronavirus disease which originated in China. The wide spread of this disease to other countries at a high pace led the World Health Organization to announce COVID-19 as a global health crisis. As the fatality rate rapidly increased globally, it affected people’s behaviours to a large extent in the form of fear, panic emotion and unwanted anxiety. The aim of this research was to evaluate public behaviours toward COVID-19 in South Africa. Methods. The research employed a quantitative methodology, and descriptive design was used to collect the data. Using virtual snowball sampling technique, a total of 160 individuals who were above 17 years of age and literate in English were selected from East London district in the Eastern Cape State of South Africa. A two point Likert-scale questionnaire was developed in Google Form, and the responses collected from the online survey were entered in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26. Descriptive statistics and Analysis of Variance were used to analyse the data. Results. The results showed that the participants kept social distancing of at least one meter, carried hand sanitizer whenever they went out and washed their hands frequently to avoid the contamination of the Coronavirus. The results also revealed that males and females did not have any difference in behaviour toward COVID-19. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the age categories of individuals in their behaviours toward COVID-19. Conclusion. Overall, the public in East London city of South Africa showed positive behaviours toward COVID-19. Keywords: behaviours, SARS-CoV-2, Coronavirus, World Health Organization, South Africa.

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Introduction: World Health Organization declared Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 a pandemic after two months of its propagation in China. The lack of coordination among people about the new Coronavirus threat is evident mainly due to the dearth of knowledge. Objective: To assess the knowledge of people in the East London district of South Africa about Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Methods: The study was anchored on a quantitative method approach and adopted a descriptive research design. The sample consisted of 160 adults. Using the virtual snowball sampling technique, people who were 18 years and above of age and can read English were selected for the online survey. The data were collected using a 3-point Likert scale questionnaire which was uploaded in Google Form. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The majority of the participants knew the myths and facts about the news. They were aware that wearing a face mask prevents Coronavirus transmission, drinking liquor and using hand dryers would not kill the virus. Some people were not sure whether eating garlic or rinsing the nose regularly with saline water would help to prevent from being affected by Coronavirus. The findings also showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.05) among different age groups of people on their knowledge about the Coronavirus. Conclusion: By comparing the overall findings with the facts issued by World Health Organization, people in the East London district of South Africa had sound knowledge about Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 on its transmission and what preventive measures should be taken.