This paper discusses the challenges faced by rural learners in South Africa in the context of the world pandemic commonly known as COVID-19 Rural learners face unprecedented challenges in adjusting to a new mode of life and learning, the latter being characterised by the predominant use of online, learning management systems and low-tech applications The paper is informed by critical emancipatory research, which argues for social justice, empowerment and social inclusion of all learners in teaching and learning, with the aim of constructing better futures for all learners To generate data, I used participatory action research A total of 10 learners and five teachers participated via WhatsApp The paper answers two questions: what are the learning challenges faced by rural learners in South Africa, and how can online learning be enhanced in the context of COVID-19? The findings suggest that, while the South African government is promoting online learning as the only alternative in the context of COVID-19, this mode excludes many rural learners from teaching and learning, due to a lack of resources to connect to the internet, the learning management system, and low-tech software Based on the findings of this study, the paper argues that rural learners are critical stakeholders in education and in the fight against COVID-19, and they cannot be left behind in efforts to fight the pandemic Values such as social justice and the rights of rural learners should not be foregone in the fight against COVID-19

Rural online learning in the context of COVID-19 in South Africa: Evoking an inclusive education approach/ Aprendizaje rural online en el contexto de COVID-19 en Sudáfrica: Evocando un enfoque de educación inclusiva

Telecommuting in education field, enforced by Romanian Government measures as policy responses to COVID-19 pandemic, has had a tremendous effect both on teaching professionals and on students. This paper investigates the first group, namely the teachers and their perception of online education versus students’ academic performance during distance learning, with a particular focus on the negative factors impacting educational activities: objective ones, such as the limits of technology, and personal subjective ones, as in the phenomenon of negative affect. The study is based on quantitative research that assesses the relationship between personal subjective factors (skills, affect, difficulties in adapting, level of preparedness, professional satisfaction) and technological objective factors (inadequate electronic devices, faulty internet services), with a view to establishing if online education is genuinely sustainable as a valid educational system in the long run. 881 teachers from Romania were subjected to reflect on the effectiveness of online education during the pandemic, resulting in a correlational study with some interesting conclusions and directions highlighted as characteristic for a sustainable educational program. All in all, it can be concluded that when teachers become experienced in online teaching, the efficiency of online teaching is set to improve and when improvement happens, online teaching becomes sustainable as a proper method of training via online-facilitated means of communication.

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Effective Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic? Distance Learning and Sustainable Communication in Romania

Studies on the determinants of school results have shown that they depend largely on the context of learning. Concerning the pandemic, teachers have been forced to find online teaching methods, which leads us to the central issue of this study of whether the effectiveness of online education depends on teachers’ digital skills. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the perceived digital competences of Romanian pre-tertiary cycle teachers about their professional status, school location, gender, age, taught field, and prior participation in training for online teaching. Using data from 3,419 self-completed questionnaires in an online survey of teachers performed at the beginning of the global lockdown in March 2020, we have built two reliable measures of perceived digital skills, namely the Self-Assessed Multimedia and Online Skills Score (SMOS) and the Self-Assessed Digital Office Skills Score (SDOS), which were the dependent variables in our study. Hierarchical linear regressions were used to test the hypotheses regarding the variations of dependent variables, measuring the two concepts of self-assessed digital skills (SMOS and SDOS). These concepts underlined that both decrease with age and are positively affected by prior attendance at training sessions for online teaching skills and by having ICT and informatics as a taught subject field. However, teachers of all specialties are relatively significantly less skilled in this field. The most important results concern the impact of gender and professional status on the teachers’ self-assessed digital competences. In summary, it appears that self-assessed office digital skills are a specialism demonstrated mainly by female teachers, while multimedia and online skills are perceived by teachers to be a “male” domain. Simultaneously, net of the other variables, a higher status within the teaching profession correlates positively with perceived office digital skills. Lastly, implications for future research, as well as for educational interventions and policies, are discussed.

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Self-Assessed Digital Competences of Romanian Teachers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction In the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Romanian universities switched to emergency relocation and online education, with students experiencing a sense of isolation, which affected their well-being, pace and normal learning style, relationships with other colleagues, and Professors. Beyond the technological obstacles that have arisen in learning, the aim of this study is to highlight the psychological variables that are associated and that explain the self-perceived well-being of students, in university, in the pandemic. The psychological variables studied were the following: the level of openness and personal autonomy, as personality traits of students but also the mechanisms for regulating their academic motivation. Method We used a questionnaire-based survey, wherein all four research instruments had been validated and adapted to the investigated population. The subjects were BA and MA students at the University of Oradea, Romania (N = 150), the majority being females (95.5%) with the age range of 27 years old. Pearson Correlation and Multiple Linear Regression were used to test the two hypotheses. Results Research data obtained in the correlation analysis, point out association relationships with moderate and high effects size, between positive attitude toward self, others and student life and: openness to learning, openness to aesthetics, behavioral autonomy, cognitive autonomy, intrinsic motivation, and identification motivation. Furthermore, in regression analysis, it was revealed that regarding the variance of results concerning students’ self-perceived well-being in university (positive attitude toward oneself, others, and student life), it contributes both of students’ personality traits (such as openness and personal autonomy) and their intrinsic motivation and identification motivation. Conclusion The fundamental conclusion of the research is that, although the personality traits of students explain in a higher percentage the variability of results in students’ self-perceived well-being (in terms of positive attitude toward self, others, and student life), motivation regulation mechanisms play an important role, especially in the conditions of online activities. The results have direct implications for the work carried out in universities. The educational policies developed by specialists and government will have to emphasize the ways of forming resilient student communities in periods of sudden transition and adaptation to change which take place in education and society.

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Psychological Variables Explaining the Students’ Self-Perceived Well-Being in University, During the Pandemic

The article deals with the problem of teleworking. Due to the constraints of the pandemic, the education sector has undergone a dramatic change, with teachers and students en masse moved to work from home. In the past, digital solutions have gradually penetrated the education sector, but the pandemic has turned the process into social innovation in the broad sense and performance innovation in the narrow sense. The latter aspect is addressed in this article. The paper aims to reveal the effect of the transition to teleworking on employees in the education sector. Based on the survey results, the study reports experiences of higher education and college professors, secondary schools and vocational schools' teachers and managerial staff in terms of personal well-being, management quality, and performance. The paper is novel in terms of the scope of the study: it analyses the teleworking issue in different educational institutions. In addition, the study compares the experiences of education staff and managers. There is a lack of such research in the scientific literature in the education sector. The research confirms that telecommuting managers experienced less shock and fatigue than professors and teachers. In addition, university professors proved to be the best prepared to work in innovative ways, but they also rated the performance of their managers' management work the worst among all educational institutions. Meanwhile, while teachers in secondary schools rated telework the most negatively, they rated the ability of their leaders to lead the team in extraordinary conditions the best. The research results can be useful for education leaders and policymakers as well as for researchers dealing with the topics of teleworking, teachers' job performance, employee fatigue, and leadership competencies.

Teleworking Experience of Education Professionals vs. Management Staff: Challenges Following Job Innovation

The main idea of this investigation is to identify a series of challenges and opportunities presented by telecommuting within the school system as a result of the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic. The objective of the paper is to identify key elements which are able to provide concrete assistance in building a sustainable online education system, with particular reference to Romania, as a system that can be used beyond the timeframe of the current pandemic. The methodology used for our scientific investigation is quantitative, based on an eight-item data collection instrument/questionnaire with 459 respondents (bachelor, masters, doctoral, and postdoctoral students—which makes this research a study from the perspective of the students’ perceptions) with ages ranging from 18 to 53. In terms of results, the eight items were evaluated on a Likert Scale from 1 to 5, leading to the formulation of seven hypotheses (H1 to H6), of which six were accepted and one was rejected (H7) (the questionnaire has a margin error/confidence interval of ±4.5% and a confidence level of P = 95%). We concluded from the six validated hypotheses, coupled with the one which was invalidated, that telecommuting to online education was not only successful but also garnered a system characterized by sustainability. Despite the swiftness of telecommuting to online education and the perceptions of the student population, online learning can be efficient and sustainable, in which case further government policies can only improve a system that has already been proven to work.

Ionuț Mihai Oprea

Papers

Challenges and Opportunities for Telecommuting in the School System: Building a Sustainable Online Education in the Context of the SARS-Cov-2 Pandemic