Covid-19 Pandemic and Possible Trends Into the Future of Higher Education: A Review

Abstract

COVID-19 virus pandemic resulted to abrupt closure of higher education institutions globally as a strategy to manage its spread. This has extensively impacted on the core functions of higher education which include teaching, research and community service. Through a desktop review of relevant literature, the study explored the impacts, mitigation measures adopted, emerging challenges and the future of higher education in the context of COVID-19. The pandemic disrupted the academic calendar, research activities, displaced students, and there has been loss in revenue streams and human resources. It is likely to affect sustainability of local and international higher education. Higher education institutions responded by leveraging the use Information Communication technology (ICT) to minimize disruptions. Challenges experienced include unreliable internet connectivity and ICT infrastructure, equity in access to remote teaching and learning, staff and students’ readiness, assessment of learning, resource constraints, delivery of field and practical courses and quality assurance in emergency remote teaching and learning. The impacts, responses and challenges have been manifested with gaps and inequalities between learners, institutions and countries. The study envisions widescale uptake of blended delivery of academic programmes, capacity building for staff and students on online pedagogy and a holistic quality assurance framework that infuses achievement of desired learning outcomes with Maslow Hierarchy of needs. Greater emphasis will be placed on the entrepreneurial university, institutional mergers and strategic planning for disasters.

The Impact of Workload, Productivity, and Social Support on Burnout Among Marketing Faculty During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Social distancing and travel restrictions have made it difficult for faculty to collaborate in research, affecting research projects (Marinoni et al, 2020; Wigginton et al, 2020). In addition, researchers have faced diminishing research funding as a result of the pandemic (Kara, 2021).…”

Considerations for University Pedagogy: Distance Learning One Year After the Covid-19 Pandemic Outbreak

“…At the very first period, the educational technology most widely used was that of synchronous collaboration tools to simulate the traditional face-to-face communication to any possible extent. In another study, Kara (2021) found that globally most higher education institutions demonstrated agility and resilience during the pandemic, concluding to a continuation of student learning. An extended literature review for the consequences of the pandemic in higher education institutions, putting an emphasis on what happened in Greece can be found in Karavas & Liontou (2022).…”

From pandemic disruption to post-pandemic transformation: New possibilities for teaching in South African higher education

“…Within the South African higher education context, the effects of the pandemic were compounded by the severely unequal socioeconomic realities of the country (Cranfield et al 2021;Davids 2021;Le Grange 2020;Soudien, Reddy, and Harvey 2021). There were losses: of human life; of community and interaction; of opportunity (Kara 2021). Moreover, learning losses have most likely "been experienced disproportionately by those who are vulnerable and less able to draw on the resources of the system" (Soudien et al 2021, 320).…”

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The COVID-19 pandemic has had previously unimaginable and far-reaching effects on higher education globally (Baker et al 2022;Cranfield et al 2021;Kara 2021;Le Grange 2020). On top of the widespread loss felt by students and teachers across the world, we have had to make rapid changes to previously taken-for-granted ways of doing, being, learning and teaching (Baker et al 2022;Cranfield et al 2021).

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