CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES VIA ONLINE LEARNING: HOW HAS BASIC SCHOOLING RESPONDED TO COVID-19: A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

In South Africa, The COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent disruption of the social order adversely affected the deliverance of education, thus compromising the future of millions of young people and the socio-economic development of the country itself. The sudden and rushed transition from physical contact classes to online learning has revealed the extent to which South Africa's basic education system is unprepared for possible disruptions. This paper examines whether sudden and rushed transition from physical contact classes to online learning can be seen as a barrier to inclusive education, especially considering the inequalities in South Africa's basic education system. Additionally, while the paper acknowledges that the pandemic has negatively affected the country’s primary schooling, it also seeks to examine how the South African government has responded to this disruption. This paper adopted a qualitative research approach and the review of the literature was undertaken to answer the guiding questions of this paper. The socio-cultural theory was adopted to explain how education takes place within the social space, and how changes to that effect tend to influence teaching and learning. The paper reveals that South Africa's basic education system is not ready to fully implement online learning as there are considerable challenges that need to be addressed before this could be undertaken. This however is not unique to South Africa as developing countries are all finding it difficult to migrate from physical to online classes and sadly, it is young people who are disadvantaged in the process. This paper concludes that it is necessary for South Africa's basic education system to prepare for possible disruptions in the future and ensure that such disruptions have minimal impact on learners