It’s been weeks since President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered the nationwide lockdown, which led to universities and other institutions to put academics on hold.
On the bright side, Wits University announced that it will begin with online teaching and learning from Monday, 20 April 2020.
The university said in a statement that it has made available 5000 new laptops in the Wits Computing Bank allocated for students who need them. In addition, all students will get a 30GB of data (10GB anytime + 20GB night express) at no cost for one month.
“We are pleased to let you know hat Vodacom came on board this morning with an equivalent offer and will provide details on this in the course of the next 48hours,” said the institution.
MTN is in the recess of verifying information and will be activating the data before Monday morning.
Further instructions were mentioned of the universities site:
The academic programme will be introduced in phases over the next few weeks, so that you have time to adjust to the new learning environment. All lectures will be available on our learning management systems and can be downloaded at any time. If you are still waiting for your mobile computing device to be delivered or your data to be connected, do not despair – you can access your lectures and other resources from Sakai or Moodle as soon as you are connected. Whilst we will be resolute in our efforts to recover the lost elements of the 2020 academic year, we remain committed to you, our students who are an integral part of the Wits community.
Tests and assignments
No assignments or tests will fall due or be scheduled until the 4th of May 2020. These measures will ensure that students are not academically disadvantaged in any way.
Mobile Computing Devices dispatched
We are cognisant of the digital and related learning inequalities in our society and we are doing our best to ensure that we address your needs. Hundreds of mobile computing devices have been pre-loaded with the requisite software and have already been dispatched. Staff are working through this weekend to ensure that the remaining devices are pre-loaded and dispatched, so that they reach students on Monday or during the course of next week.
Zero-rated sites
Wits has negotiated with telecommunications service providers to have learning and library sites zero-rated so that you can access them at no cost to users. You may require R1 of data to be loaded before you access these sites: https://www.wits.ac.za/mywits/zero-rated-data-to-students-and-applicants/. (P.S. Zero-rating means that you are not charged when you access these sites.)
For more info visit www.wits.ac.za.
