TSIBA BUSINESS SCHOOL RESPONSE TO COVID19

Author: TSIBA Business School

As the global health crises began to unfold some weeks back our first responsibility was to protect the health and well-being of students, staff and all other people engaged with TSIBA.

For this reason, the early decision was made to bring the first 2020 holiday break forward and to fully close campus. Campus lockdown was implemented on Tuesday, March 17th and will continue until further notice on guidance from the South African government. 

At that point, we also announced a further decision to waive all fees payable by our students, albeit that this is (only) R250 per month for most, and that fees paid to date for the 2020 academic year will be fully refunded. This will apply to all students whose annual household income is less than R350 000 and represents 96% of our student body. Given the increasingly difficult economic situation, many of our students may find themselves in going forward, this was considered a necessary and important step to ease economic pressure on students and their families.

Given the radical and sudden shift in our reality, the earlier break has afforded the opportunity to plan the most effective way to deliver on a second core responsibility - the continued delivery of the TSIBA academic programme during and post the lockdown periods, and enabling our students to move successfully through their studies. Towards this, TSIBA has taken the decision to proceed using a phased and agile approach. This will include a ‘First Response’ interim phase of two months from date of lockdown, an overlapping ‘Intermediate Phase’ of four months from date of lockdown, and a Future-Focused Phase during which we will address our approach by integrating blended and more online teaching and learning going forward.     

Phase 1 - First Response 

In addition to the full campus closure and the waiving of students fees, our first phase kicked off with the distribution of Chromebooks to students in particular need, to support them with online access to Google Classroom which is our primary academic online platform. 

In the very brief period available prior to lockdown, we were able to distribute the Chromebooks to over 70% of the students. Chromebook distribution will continue further and as far as possible under the lockdown guidelines, or on return to campus. Students without Chromebooks have access with tablet devices previously issued or with their own devices including smartphones.  

While students are in possession of remote devices, a particular challenge for TSIBA has been that of access to data. Data remains expensive in South Africa and for most TSIBA students is not affordable for ongoing access to our learning platforms and materials. To address this, and following a comprehensive online student survey, TSIBA students will be issued with the Telkom two-month prepaid sim Cards so that they can remain in contact for access to our teaching content and student support as necessary. 

Notwithstanding some of the data challenges we have had to address, formal digital communication to TSIBA students from Faculty has been ongoing twice weekly and this will continue through the remainder of this year. In the immediate future, and as a result of limited access to internet resources, Faculty has postponed all assessments, with new assessment dates which will be communicated as we come on stream with the revised curriculum. 

Phase 2 - Intermediate 

During the Intermediate Phase (Current to month 4)  TSIBA Faculty will continue to deliver an academic programme revised for delivery via digital learning while TSIBA IT will continue with research on zero-rating our digital teaching and learning platforms, including a more thorough analysis on the possibility of implementation of reverse data charge platform. Unfortunately, TSIBA does not enjoy the reverse charge data platforms made available to all public tertiary institutions in South Africa. 

Phase 3 - Future Focussed

During this phase, TSIBA will explore more optimal online teaching and learning platforms that are seamlessly integrated with face-to-face interaction. Phase 1 and 2 will provide valuable beta testing of the robustness of TSIBA’s online teaching ventures and will inform the future focus of Phase 3.  This will also include regular one-on-one student check-ins as personal attention and support is still hugely important.