Editor’s note: We would like to thank Cebisa Kati, 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.

The university have undergone totally unanticipated changes in the way it operate, generally in the way it delivers academic programmes since South Africa recorded its first confirmed case of COVID-19. The institution sent out a moratorium on summative assessments of students and that affected my work negatively as a consultant because my work is involves mainly assignment reviews.

The institution embarked on online teaching and learning to salvage the 2020 academic year. The university felt less ready to implement remote learning because of lack of resources for students to begin their online learning as this came unexpectedly. No one was prepared for the sudden shift of events. The issue of data and laptops still hold the future of students since the university failed to distribute these to students in time. As a consultant it is hard for me to work from home since this pandemic has started because all the academic activities has been suspended, so I receive no assignment to reviews from students. Besides the suspension of academic activities, I am from a poor household where there is no internet connectivity so I cannot access internet as I used to rely on school wifi.

In order to ensure we keep on working as consultants, we must create a link; it can be a whatsapp link, a blackboard link or use of emails where we can invite students to join when university online learning has started. Students can easily submit their assignments to that link, stating the problem that needs our attention, in order to get assisted. This will improve our level of using technology as consultants and students at large. While Covid-19 lockdown presents its challenges, it is also a massive opportunity to break out of old habits and create new; impactful, relevant modes of learning that take advantage of technology.

Lessons have been learnt during this Covid-19 lockdown. In order to curb the spread of the disease we received guidelines from the World Health Organisation. Only responsible outdoor walks during the quarantine, washing of hands and sanitising. Outdoor interactions increase the risk, but we are social animals, we crave greenery and the outdoors, and as we have already seen it, people will break the rules as they are doing with other diseases such as HIV & AIDS. If we are only allowed to go to supermarkets, soon we have excuses to visit one every day and soon these will become foci of infection. As a new consultant, I feel like I could be far better now in terms of experience if we had continued working. I feel like I have lost a valuable time of enriching my CV because there is no hope that things will go back to normal any time soon because of this pandemic.

In order for us to work smoothly the university must sort out all its financial issues and send data and laptops to students, which will also save time lost during lockdown. The 2020 academic year will have to spill over into next year, either at the end of March or April regardless of start date. Meanwhile students cannot safely return on campus, the university must start to implement remote, multi-modal teaching and learning as stated by minister Blade Nzimande of higher education. It is important that the institution take into account different groups of students ranging from those who are unable to pursue home based learning on any level to those (in the minority) who are able to participate fully in online leaning to ensure that none is left behind. For example these students can be identified and a special programme can be set for them when they get back on campus for contact learning.  All students must be able to access assessments fairly during the lockdown.