COVID-19 and the Key Digital Transformation Lessons for Higher Education Institutions in South Africa

Abstract

COVID-19 has left an unmistakable impression on the world stage. It has altered the global socio-economic landscape, forcing individuals to adapt and embrace new ways of doing business, as well as new ways of life. One of the most significant effects of the pandemic was to hasten the adoption of digital technologies by many areas of the global economy. Campus closures were observed in the higher education sector, putting an end to long-standing face-to-face teaching and learning. This necessitated the most rapid paradigm shift ever seen in this industry to continue educating and learning. An abrupt change to online learning, which is primarily reliant on digital technologies, occurred. As a result, the purpose of this article is to investigate and identify ten critical digital transformation lessons from COVID-19 for South African higher education institutions. Secondary data gathered from the literature research were used to meet the study’s goal. The study concluded by laying out the most important digital transformation lessons for South Africa, including the notion that the country should strive to build digital capabilities because digital technology gaps remain wide, among other things.

Education Innovations during COVID-19 Pandemic: “A Case of Zimbabwe and South Africa Universities”

“…Many innovations were implemented including use of social media, Televisions, zoom., Microsoft teams, google teams to disseminate information that could of more importance to knowledge sharing between the instructor and student. However, the cost of internet, internet devices and the ability to use this technology were major obstacles to use e-learning for universities [4,5,7]. Given such interesting insights, the current study seeks to investigate the technological innovations that universities implemented during the Corona virus pandemic period.…”

Post-COVID-19 strategies for higher education institutions in dealing with unknown and uncertainties

“…There are some prior studies have explored issues about digital transformation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic: Abdulrahim and Mabrouk (2020), Bhagat and Kim (2020), Marks et al (2020), García-Morales et al (2021, Hai et al (2021), Kutnjak (2021), Mahmud et al (2022), andNurhas et al (2021) have highlighted the challenges of rapid digital transformation in higher education institutions during the global pandemic. Mahmud et al (2021) and Mhlanga et al (2022) have concluded key digital transformation lessons learned during the pandemic. However, the diffusion of digitalization that happened during the COVID-19 outbreak has also brought new opportunities to higher education institutions.…”

Ethical and methodological reflections: Digital storytelling of self-care with students during the COVID-19 pandemic at a South African University

“…Therefore, understanding the ethical and methodological issues of digital storytelling among the study population of first-year university students can inform the design of public health studies using the digital storytelling method. Such research can inform how more diverse university students can be engaged in digital storytelling, given that youths have been found to be active users of online platforms [ 43 , 44 ].…”