Tuks has weathered Covid storm, says vice-chancellor

University of Pretoria vice-chancellor professor Tawana Kupe believes the university has successfully weathered the Covid-19 “storm”.

“Although the pandemic posed serious challenges to higher learning institutions, it also provided an opportunity for universities to enhance their ability to teach in different forms other than contact learning,” Kupe told a media briefing on Tuesday.

The briefing was held at the Javett-Up art centre at the university campus in Hatfield.

“As institutions, we needed to learn how to survive and dodge the coronavirus disruptions to ensure effective learning. I can say that from the time the outbreak started to now, we have fully weathered the storm,” he said.

“In this university, we do not have the philosophy of having 100% contact learning or 100% online learning. Instead, our philosophy is somewhere in the middle, which is what we call hybrid learning. As we move forward, the university will continue with hybrid learning.”

Kupe said the adoption of hybrid learning was a measure to minimise the negative impact on effective learning from possible future disruptions of new pandemics.

“There will be other pandemics in the future and we need to prepare for these.”

“In this programme, we will choose certain parts of the courses that will be done in class and those done online. The programme has worked, during the first semester many performed well in some courses, we even saw a lot more students writing exams.”

One of the concerns raised when online learning started was the university’s ability to ensure students do not cheat. Kupe said they had to change how they structure questions and equip their systems to detect any cheating.

“There were a few students caught cheating through our systems and the university dealt with them appropriately,” he said.

One such system was called a proctoring system. This system monitors the computer’s desktop, webcam video and audio, detecting any form of cheating.

Kupe, however, said he was encouraged how students reacted to the emergency remote learning, as some did well.

READ MORE: University postpones Wednesday exams amid taxi strike

Meanwhile, the institution’s finances were also negatively affected by the outbreak as many guardians of students lost jobs, he said.

“Yes, it was a tough time but we managed it very well.”

In the beginning, many students raised concerns about educational exclusion of students who did not have access to laptops and the internet.

In response to this, the university started late with online learning to accommodate for students who did not have the proper equipment.

Kupe said the UP solidarity fund was able to purchase laptops and internet gadgets for more than 3 000 students to ensure no one was left behind.

“Even though we provided laptops and internet equipment to students, there were some that did not have connectivity. Teaching had to be made through phone calls, learning through textbooks. When the lockdown levels came down, we brought those students back to campus.”