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M U T

S P I R I T

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S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0

The year 2020 should not go down in history as

subversive of MUT’s academic enterprise. It should

be remembered as the year we built a fortification

to “save the academic year and save lives” during

a pandemic which shut schools and universities

across the entire world. All this in spite of the fact that as an historically disadvantaged

institution, we are among the world’s most marginalised when it comes to providing

digital programme offerings.

From the Acting

Vice-Chancellor

Professor Marcus Ramogale

Professor Marcus Ramogale

Since 17 June we have been clear that we would

heed the clarion call of Dr Blade Nzimande, Minister

of Higher Education and Training, Science and

Innovation, “to save the academic year and to save

lives” through a phased-in return to campus under

Level 3 of the lockdown. However, we knew that

achieving this would require out-of-the-box thinking.

A preliminary investigation of how our students

consume online learning showed that the resources

they had toaccess online learningwere either outdated,

limiting in terms of bandwidth, or not available at

all. To ensure that “No student is left behind”, we

commenced a journey into the uncharted waters of

multimodal teaching, learning and assessment. We

developed a Multimodal Teaching, Learning and

Assessment Plan (MTLAP) which would cater for the

following categories of students:

students who are unable to work effectively at

home under lockdown conditions, for a range of

reasons;

students who do not have access to devices and

cannot engage in any form of online or digital

learning;

students who may have devices but do not have

data and/or connectivity to enable participation in

online learning opportunities, but could engage in

digital learning if electronic material were made

available;

students who have devices, data, connectivity and

conducive study conditions and can participate in

online learning opportunities; and

students living with disabilities, who are part of all

the groups described above.

In order to support the MTLAP we worked with the

faculty deans to develop a project plan in which we

revised the academic calendar and brought clinical

students back to campus on 1 July, followed by final-

year students and then postgraduate students to make

up the first 33%. For more than 60 days, we have been

getting to grips with the MTLAP. From 1 July we made

appropriate teaching and learning materials available

on our learning management system, Blackboard,

to ensure that even those students who were not on

campus would not be excluded in our efforts to save

lives and save the academic year.

We refuse to let the events of 2020 disrupt the future

of our students who aspire to become professionals

and play a role in revitalising our struggling economy.

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