Education in Times of COVID-19: Looking for Silver Linings in the Southern Africa’s Educational Responses

Abstract

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted socio-economic activities, including formal and non-formal education, across the world at lightning speed. By mid-April 2020, it had interrupted the formal education of nearly 1.6 billion students in 192 countries. COVID-19’s disruption of education in Africa, and especially in southern Africa, has been severe for several reasons. However, educational responses to COVID-19 suggest that it has stimulated the appetite for developing educational innovations – silver linings to the COVID-19 cloud.This paper is based on interviews conducted with 56 parents, students and educators involved in formal and non-formal education in Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We identified the main educational challenges in these countries as being concerned with adapting to: (i) online education and learning, (ii) continuity of education from home, and (iii) community-based learning in small groups. The silver linings that we identified are: (i) putting greater emphasis on finding context-specific solutions to education and health problems (improvisation), which is important for educational relevance and reveals the value of local actors, (ii) making linkages between social and ecological systems clearer, which is making the value of education for sustainable development (ESD) in this century more explicit, and (iii) revealing structural inequality and justice issues in education, which draws attention to the need for urgently addressing them as part of transformative change in education and sustainable development.

The Shifts to Online Learning: Think Piece: Assumptions, Implications and Possibilities for Quality Education in Teacher Education

“…This includes diminished resources for institutions, personal and academic challenges for institutions and students, demand for improved infrastructure to support continued distance and blended learning models, reduced mobility placing pressures to improve regional and local tertiary institutions, and more (World Bank, 2020). This resonates with Mukute et al (2020) who researched education in times of COVID-19 in Southern Africa (see previous edition of this journal, Volume 36). From an SDG 4 perspective, issues of accessibility to education are central to quality education (UNESCO, 2015(UNESCO, , 2018.…”

Covid-19 and the entrenchment of a virtual Elite private school: Rethinking education policies in Zimbabwe

“…It is important to highlight that stakeholders, particularly the government, the private sector and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), did not turn a blind eye to ever-increasing education challenges. Mukute et al (2020) report several responses to the new challenges that ensured that learning never stops. Countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) planned to mobilise resources, implement context-appropriate and equitable solutions for the challenges facing distance education, and for learning remotely.…”

“…According to Kopp (2020), the most common challenges of online education are related to the change from traditional in-person education, the pace of change, access to technology, user competence and financing of online education. Mukute et al (2020) report that, when the COVID-19 pandemic started, concerns about students' ability to adapt to digital learning, arose. The reduction in or total elimination of physical teacherlearner interaction took a toll on learners' performance.…”

Sustainability Education for Ontological Re/Configuration: COVID-19 as a Pointer to the Ailing World Asili

“…COVID-19 has accentuated the nature of the established global order. In terms of education, in southern Africa we have seen efforts to promote online teaching and other innovative learning strategies, as a prime response to the emerging educational limitations (e.g., Mukute et al, 2020) . Yet, this is a watershed moment for scholars to interrogate and revisit the meaning of education itself in light of its apparent contribution to COVID-19 amplified crises of local and global inequalities, unemployment, lack of resources, and unsustainable development.…”