EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON HIGHER AND TERTIARY EDUCATION - A CASE OF GREAT ZIMBABWE UNIVERSITY (GZU)

Hilda Jaka

Abstract


This study explored the effects of COVID-19 on higher and tertiary education in Zimbabwe. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (SARS-COV-2) in December 2019 disrupted traditional forms of teaching and learning centred on face-to-face and in-class instruction. Governments enforced social distancing measures characterised by stay-at-home strategies and the closure of schools and other learning facilities. This study discusses the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on higher and tertiary education in Zimbabwe, especially the varied approaches and its pedagogical future. The study explores the challenges and innovations brought out by the pandemic in relation to provision of higher learning at Great Zimbabwe University. The challenges of access to the internet for both lecturers and students, lack of essential learning gadgets such as laptops and smartphones for both students and lecturers, the capacity of the university to keep its learning sites working flawless, the challenges of non-submission and or late submission of assignments by students resulting to the aforementioned challenges and other challenges will be under scope in this study. The study also consider innovations that the university did amidst the pandemic that promoted higher learning. These various interactive forces transformed learning at Great Zimbabwe University. This study is thus an interpretive assessment of the various changes that took place in higher learning institutions.

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


impact of COVID-19, higher and tertiary education, Great Zimbabwe University (GZU)

Full Text:

PDF

References


Anderson, R. (2007). Thematic Content Analysis (TCA) Descriptive Presentation of Qualitative Data. Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.

Barbour RS. Checklists for improving rigour in qualitative research: a case of the tail wagging the dog? BMJ. 2001 May 5;322(7294):1115-7. doi: 10.1136/bmj.322.7294.1115. PMID: 11337448; PMCID: PMC1120242.

Beukes, J. R. (2006). Using Radio in Innovative ways to support ODL Learners in Namibia: Opportunities, Challenges, and Achievements. Paper presented at The Fourth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF4). Retrieved on 21 April 2020 from http://pcf4.dec.uwi.edu/viewpaper.php?id=178

Bless G, Higson S. (2000). Fundamentals of Social Research: An African Perspective, 2nd Edition, Juta Publishers (Pty) LTD, RSA.

Cresswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011). Designing and Conducting mixed method research (2nd edition.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Denzin, N. K. (2001). The reflexive interview and a performative social science. Qualitative Research, 1(1), 23–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/146879410100100102

Flick, Uwe (2011). Introducing Research Methodology: A Beginner’s Guide to Doing a Research Project. Los Angeles: Sage., Manusya: Journal of Humanities, 13(1), 81-82. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/26659077-01301006

Fosnot, C. (2005). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers: College Press.

Government of Zimbabwe (2020). Public Health (COVID‐19 Prevention, Containment and Treatment) (National Lockdown) Order, 2020. Harare, Zimbabwe; 2020 28th March 2020.

Jose, B., Berry, M., & Andrews, L. (2019). Course Format and Student Learning Styles: A Comparison of Political Science Courses. American Journal of Distance Education, 33(4), 262-275. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2019.1643697

Kalogiannakis, M., & Papadakis, S. (2019). Evaluating pre-service kindergarten teachers’ intention to adopt and use tablets into teaching practice for natural sciences. Int. J. Mobile Learning and Organisation, 13(1), 113-127. http://doi.org/10.1504/IJMLO.2019.10016617

Karombo, T. (2018). Smartphone Users Over 50% in Zim. Technomag. Retrieved on 5 October 2020 from https://itweb.africa/content/VgZeyqJoEaLvdjX9

Leedy P.D; (1997). Practical Research, Planning and Design. Macmillan Publishing Co. New York.

McAlister, A. (2009). Teaching the millennial generation. American Music Teacher, 59(1), 13-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/000313130905900113

Mitch, M. (2019). “We Stand with Hong Kong,” Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2019.

Mouton J., Marais P. (1996). Understanding Social Research: J.L. Van Schaik Publishers, Pretoria.

Munene, S., & Mutsotso, N. (2019). Kibabii University use of television in promoting teaching and learning in schools. British International Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 6(5), 10-15.

Nicola, M., Alsafi, Z., Sohrabi, C., Kerwan, A., Al-Jabir, A., Iosifidis, C., Agha, M., & Agha, R. (2020). The socio-economic implications of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19): A review. International journal of surgery (London, England), 78, 185–193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.04.018SHARMA

Noble H, Heale R. (2019). Triangulation in research, with examples. Evid Based Nurs. 2019 Jul;22(3):67-68. doi: 10.1136/ebnurs-2019-103145. Epub 2019 Jun 14. PMID: 31201209.

OCHA. (2020, September 4). Zimbabwe situation. UNOCHA. Retrieved from https://reports.unocha.org/en/country/zimbabwe/

OECD (2020). Learning remotely when schools close: How well are students and schools prepared? Insight from PISA, Tackling Coronavirus (COVID-19): Contributing to a Global Effort, OECD.

Olusegun, S. (2015). Constructivism Learning Theory: A Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. Journal of Research & Method in Education, 5(1), 66-70.

Onyesolu, O., Nwasor, C., Ositanwosu, E., & Iwegbuna, N. (2013). Pedagogy: Instructivism to Socio-Constructivism through Virtual Reality. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 4(9), 40-47. https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2013.040907

Paules C. I., Marston H.D., Fauci A. S. (2020). Coronavirus Infections-More than Just the Common Cold. JAMA. 2020 Jan 23

Phelan A. L., Katz R., Gostin L. O. (2020). The Novel Coronavirus Originating in Wuhan, China: Challenges for Global Health Governance. JAMA. 2020 Jan 30

Porter, G., Hampshire, K., Milner, J., Munthali, A., Robson, E., De Lannoy, A., & Abane, A. (2015). Mobile Phones and Education in sub-Saharan Africa: From Youth Practice to Public Policy. Journal of International Development, 28, 22-39. https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3116

POTRAZ. (2019). Abridged postal and telecommunications sector performance report. Harare. Retrieved from https://t3n9sm.c2.acecdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Abridged-Sector-Performance-report-4th-Q2019pdf.pdf

Rugonye, S., & Rupande, G. (2016). Role of Traditional Leaders in Infrastructural Development in Marondera Rural District in Zimbabwe. Scholars Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, 1086-1115.

Sandford A. Coronavirus: Half of humanity now on lockdown as 90 countries call for confinement. Accessed on 17 April 2020

Sharma, S., & Ventä-Olkkonen, L. (2020). Digital transformation of everyday life–How COVID-19 pandemic transformed the basic education of the young generation and why information management research should care? International Journal of Information Management, 102183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102183KUMAR

Taber, K. (2006). Beyond Constructivism: The progressive research programme into learning science. Studies in Science and Education, 42, 125-184. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057260608560222

UNDESA (2019). International Migration 2019 Report, New York

USAID. Statement by USAID Administrator Mark Green on the Commitment of $37 Million in Assistance to Respond to Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 | Press Release | U.S. Agency for International Development [Internet]. 2020

Wahab, A. (2020). Online and Remote Learning in Higher Education Institutes: A Necessity in light of COVID-19 pandemic. Higher Education Studies, 10(3), 16-25. https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v10n3p16

Walker P, Whittaker C, and Watson O. (2020). The Global Impact of COVID‐19 and Strategies for Mitigation and Suppression. 2020.

Wargo, E., Chellman, C., Budge, K., & Davis, C. (2020). On the digital frontier: Stakeholders in rural areas take on educational technology and schooling. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2020.1760753

Yaya S., Out. A. and Labonté. R (2020) Globalisation in the time of COVID-19: Repositioning Africa to meet the immediate and remote challenges. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00581-4

Zhou, L., Li, F., Wu, S., & Zhou, M. (2020). “School’s Out, But Class’s On”, The Largest Online Education in the World Today: Taking China’s Practical Exploration During The COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control as An Example. Best Evid Chin Edu, 4(2), 501-519. https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.20.ar023

Zimstats. (2018, December). Poverty, Income, Consumption, and Expenditure Survey 2017 Report. Retrieved from http://www.zimstat.co.zw/sites/default/files/img/zwe-2017-pices-report.pdf




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejsss.v7i1.1184

Copyright (c) 2021 Hilda Jaka

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The research works published in this journal are free to be accessed. They can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and\or adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon the material for any purpose, commercially and\or not commercially) under the following terms: attribution (appropriate credit must be given indicating original authors, research work name and publication name mentioning if changes were made) and without adding additional restrictions (without restricting others from doing anything the actual license permits). Authors retain the full copyright of their published research works and cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms are followed.

Copyright © 2016 - 2023. European Journal Of Social Sciences Studies (ISSN 2501-8590) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and  Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.


 

Hit counter