6 / 40
M U T
S P I R I T
/ /
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they had toaccess online learningwere either outdated,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.
4