Managing higher education institutions in the context of COVID-19 stringency: Experiences of stakeholders at a rural South African university

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic poses unparalleled challenges to education systems around the world, all of which have devastating effects. While these effects have been troubling in developing and developed countries, rural education systems in developing countries have particularly been most susceptible to collapse. The unique context of rural universities makes it difficult to implement approaches similar to those implemented in the developed world and/or more urban-based institutions. Underpinned by Von Bertalanffy’s Systems Theory, which argues that organisations are composed of systems that have goals to achieve, this paper thus sought to explore the coping mechanisms instituted at a rural South African university in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It further sought to establish how the university has managed to cope with the challenges that are unique to rural universities as exacerbated by the onset of the pandemic. Underpinned by a post-positivist paradigm, the study employed a mixed methods approach through which data was collected using online questionnaires and interviews. The findings of the study revealed that although the institution had put some measures in place to ensure that the university is efficiently managed in the context of COVID-19 stringencies, university stakeholders are still faced with insurmountable challenges that range from campus safety, cancellation and postponement of examinations, as well as weakened research and international collaborations. Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that South African institutions and the government need to invest more on safety infrastructural facilities that will ensure that rural university stakeholders are safe. Furthermore, there is a need for technical infrastructural facilities that enable the shift from conventional assessment, teaching and learning approaches to a more blended educational model.

COVID-19 induced psychosocial challenges in South African higher education: Experiences of staff and students at two rural universities

“…were closed and alternative methods of instruction had to be formulated (Adeyon & Soykan, 2020;Ebrahim et al, 2020). This gave rise to the establishment of online learning in order to rescue education, albeit with very minimal preparedness especially in rural settings where the infrastructure to enable online learning was barely existent (Dube, 2020;Mncube al., 2021). Remote learning however presents various challenges for students and staff at higher education institutions -for example the lack of access, training and unavailability of online resources (Dhawan, 2020;Kalimullina et al, 2021;Muhuro & Kang'ethe, 2021), complications of assessment and evaluation (Ntshwarang et al, 2021;UNESCO, 2020).…”

“…In fact, the incidence of stress, anxiety, and depression seem to be increasing in most organisations, despite intensified scientific attention to this phenomenon from various disciplines. This is exacerbated with the complexities which the pandemic has brought to the fore, wherein academics who initially were involved in offering moral support to students' needs, incessantly grapple with tasks other than their core teaching functions in order to maintain the functionality of institutions (Mncube et al, 2021;Williams et al, 2021).…”

Chronicling school principals’ experiences on school management in the context of COVID-19 stringency

“…In order to rescue teaching and learning during the COVID-19-induced disruptions, education institutions worldwide were forced to abruptly adopt online learning models (Muhuro & Kang'ethe, 2021). The impact of this abrupt transformation was most acute in the developing world where institutions and communities were underprepared owing to the lack of infrastructure that is essential for online pedagogies and a lack of financing for this transformation (Dube, 2020;Mncube et al, 2021). According to UNESCO (2020), more than 13 million learners in schools, and over 1.1 million students in higher education institutions were inordinately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

“…The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically refined learning to a remote, screen-based activity which limited the interaction between learners and teacher support (Harris & Jones, 2020). In many ways, COVID-19 heightened a lot of important issues and revealed how inequity in education affects students and those in the society (Mncube et al, 2021). A prominent concern was the widening of inequalities in education as ochestrated by the emergency adoption of online learning.…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has posed adaptive challenges that have reminded all players that collective challenges are best-solved through cooperation and synergies (Fernandez & Shaw, 2020;Williams et al, 2021). Leadership practitioners in academic circles are thus tasked with the effective response strategies to the COVID-19 crisis (Huber & Helm, 2020;Mncube et al, 2021). Studies have shown that school leaders establish this by cultivating a democratic culture which promotes trust, accountability and collaboration (Kezar et al, 2018;Fernandez & Shaw, 2020).…”