Editor’s note: We would like to thank Kamvalethu Tshayingwe, Language and Writing Consultant at the Teaching and Learning Centre at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa for providing this collection of responses. To contact the author, please email TLC. If you would like to share your writing center’s experience during COVID-19, please submit via WLN.

                             Kamvalethu Tshayingwe

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause respiratory illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (2019-nCoV or COVID-19) recently reported from Wuhan (China), which had many cases confirmed as a new coronavirus. Although, the first cases of coronavirus infection were reported on the 13 of June 2012 in Saudi Arabia, specifically Jeddah; after this outbreak, corona virus continued to spread overseas to many countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. Currently, the COVID-19 has infected several hundred humans and has caused many fatal cases. Determining the origin and evolution of COVID-19 is important for the surveillance, drug discovery, and prevention of the epidemic. With more and more reported pathogenic COVID-19 isolates, it is necessary to re-examine their origin and diversification patterns. However, the transmission mechanism and potential treatment strategies is still unclear. Notably, although this virus initially appeared to only affect adults, cases have also been observed in pediatric patients. Thus, this novel, potentially fatal virus represented a substantial public health risk.

The disease has spread worldwide causing many problems in the livelihoods of many people and institutions. The writing centers were affected in terms of relationship to physical space and online technology as an alternative way of learning to rescue the academic year. COVID-19 has influenced negatively my relationship to the physical space of my writing center, as it was announced that we must go back home because safety of the nation was key and we had to abide with the lockdown rules. Therefore, the writing center was closed and that has affected our work progress by delaying it without any clue as to how long the delay would last. Thus, the institution decided to migrate to online teaching and learning to save the academic year, which has not been an easy strategy to implement in the writing center as we were faced with many challenges.

Furthermore, the experience of online technology has been very tough given the circumstances some of us are working under at home. Our homes are not a conducive environment to learn, there is no privacy or quiet place to focus. We live in deep rural areas where there is no network, so it is difficult to connect and do the work. In addition, data has been one other leading challenge as parents do not have enough money to buy us data to do the work and the government free data to students has been a slow process. Another challenge is time, there is no time to do the work because of so many chores at home especially if you are a female as all domestic related work is believed to be done by females. As females, we clean the house, cook, do laundry and wash children in rural areas we even go to the bush to fetch fire wood and to the river to fetch water. All these are time consuming so we do not have enough time to connect and do the work online as we get many disturbances.

Therefore, I highly recommend that government speeds up the process of free data to students so that those who do not afford data can work. Also that the institution working together with the government speed up the process of giving modems and laptops to the students. Lastly, since some students do have smart phones I suggest that some consultations be done via WhatsApp and Facebook, whereby a lecturer creates a platform for students to send their assignments to the consultants in groups since Whatsapp data is affordable, and Facebook is free in most networks. In addition, students can use Facebook as a platform of learning especially in group work assignments by electing one student who will be a group leader and submit the group assignment to the consultants on behalf of the group via inbox if they do not have data for submitting via emails.

In conclusion, when returning to the writing center I would definitely add to the fact that, students must familiarize themselves with online learning, yes it is expensive but it is also the quickest way of communication and learning and it saves time. Moreover, it is a very safe way of learning, students can learn a lot about technology as the pandemic will not disappear any time soon.  It will also equip students in many ways in terms of technical skills.