Equity, dignity, and justice in higher education post-COVID-19: The case of a public university in Namibia

Abstract

COVID-19 has disrupted teaching and learning and consequently introduced pedagogical changes into higher education institutions. Institutions of higher learning shifted from the traditional face-to-face to online teaching and learning. Higher learning institutions around the world, including the University of Namibia, had to re-think, re-imagine, re-innovate and re-design the provision of accessible, equitable and quality education. Despite unreliable internet connectivity and a lack of or unstable electricity supply in remote areas, institutions resiliently continued to provide education for all students. Due to the aftermath of COVID-19 and forces of the 4th and 5th industrial revolutions (IRs), institutions have adopted the blended learning approach, which is rooted mainly in social constructivism and classical liberal theory, which advocate for equal opportunities in education, irrespective of the socio-economic background of students. The aims of blended learning include providing different modes of content delivery to encourage interaction by students, promote the acquisition of knowledge and skills through physical classrooms, and the continuation of learning processes electronically. Through a desktop review of literature on, equity, dignity and justice in general higher education, researchers focused on a public university in Namibia, during and post-COVID-19. The researchers reviewed government and university directives, policies and peer-reviewed journal articles from 209 to 2023, which deal directly with the provision of accessible, equitable and quality higher education during and after the COVID-19 crisis from numerous databases such as EBSCO, JSTOR, SCOPUS and ERIC. The researchers retrieved 700 publications of which 30 were used for analysis. There were, however, a few related publications (2010 to 2018) that researchers looked at but did not fall between the specified periods (2019 to 2023). Data were thematically analysed, and Braun and Clarke’s (2006) framework for conducting a thematic analysis guided us. The study revealed that the outbreak of COVID-19 specifically forced institutions of higher learning to rethink and subsequently redesign their teaching and learning approaches to ensure equity, inclusivity and accessibility for all as enshrined in the universal principle of the right to education. COVID-19 has brought features of inequality in our institutions of higher learning to the surface. Notwithstanding infrastructural impediments and inadequate digital literacy skills, universities are determined to provide equitable and quality education for all. Integrating blended learning into the offering of the University of Namibia is of critical importance as it has the potential to provide both face-to-face and online learning opportunities for all.