The second term started on 20 April with an orientation week lasting until 25 April. Classes will start online on 28 April.
The university says that while it is aiming to complete the 2020 academic calendar as close as possible to the usual year, it is taking into account the possibility of unforeseen further delays.
The Senate Executive Committee (SEC) approved a calendar that assumes the need for remote teaching throughout the second and third terms, with a return to contact teaching on campus in the fourth term.
The current proposed calendar makes allowances for a summer term that will run into 2021, pushing the beginning of the new academic year to March 2021.
In preparing both the framework and the calendar, UCT says there has been particular focus on the needs of its most vulnerable students.
Read more: How the University of Cape Town is continuing learning during COVID19
Bizcommunity chatted to Zakheni Ngubo, founder and CEO at Syafunda, to get his take.
What was your initial response to the crisis/lockdown and has your experience of it been different to what you expected?
Zakheni Ngubo: Syafunda’s initial response was making sure that our line of communication with our teachers was well established and communicated. We also sought to synchronise and streamline our teacher and principal WhatsApp groups while ensuring that the Syafunda team was well prepared for the lockdown. This crisis has been accompanied by uncertainty; our organisation has focused its efforts on foreseeing how the pandemic will affect education in South Africa and adapt to the changes.
Read more: Opportunity to re-invent, revamp education system - Zakheni Ngubo, Syafunda
The debate in mid-March between university management and student representatives regarding the release of students from university accommodation in light of the Covid-19 outbreak has proven to be scientifically valid.
The design of student accommodation in our residential universities was conceptualised with massification and limited resources in mind. The 2011 Ministerial Task Team Report on Student Housing revealed that student accommodation in South Africa is geared towards housing as many undergraduate students as possible in the least available land space as possible. As a result, our post-1994 student accommodation properties are high-rise buildings accommodating as many as 1000 students in a single property. Undoubtedly, a single Covid-19 infection in one student under such conditions would have yielded a complete outbreak by the end of a week and plunged the university system into a complete crisis.
The arguments from the student leadership were also, to a degree, valid. They were correct to raise the injustices of South African communities that students come from which would make it almost impossible for them to have a fair and just learning experience if teaching was to be switched to online platforms.
Read more: How Covid-19 will affect university students currently located in rural township homes
A heated debate is raging in the media and social media, arguing how the rush to “online” learning is going to leave students behind, “lead to failure” and that the move to online will deepen the inequality fault-lines between, and within our universities.
We currently have a highly unequal higher education sector and there is a deep concern that the Covid-19 crisis will sharpen this.
Read more: Will a rush to online learning leave the underprivileged behind?
There’s never been a better time for us to stand together in partnership as a nation than right now in our quest to conquer COVID19. As well as defeating the virus, we have to think of how we will stand up after this period has passed and how we can get our children prepared for life after lockdown. We posted weekly advice on how to maximise your time and use it to keep your children’s education going.
PLANNING - Take a look at your child’s curriculum and check how far they’ve come, then plan how you will help them cover the gap that will be created by the lockdown. Create timetables and a work program to help you and your family get a grasp of what will be taking place.