Diversifying approaches to teaching, learning

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday September 22, 2025 10:14

In the recent past, the COVID-19 pandemic came and went, but taught us invaluable lessons.

One of them is the need to diversify approaches to teaching and learning. The big question is whether there is anything we learnt from the pandemic. It seems that during the pandemic, we adopted provisional measures geared towards surviving the ordeal rather than having sustainable adjustments that could usher in a completely novel dispensation. In the classroom theatre, COVID-19 had made teacher-student physical instructional interactions impossible. Students sat at home unattended to for a while.

Quick thinking outside the box prevailed. And under those trying and unprecedented circumstances, virtual teaching and learning became the order of the day. Nonetheless, as soon as the threat and fear of COVID-19 dissipated, the new normalcy that had gained currency during the health crisis was relegated to the background. Now the world is back in the comfort zone of conventional wisdom. There appears to be no visible significant measures undertaken to ensure adequate preparation and readiness for future negative eventualities. Yet COVID-19 had made it sufficiently clear that, for its continued survival, the education sector should leverage technology.

Increased investment in technology is therefore a necessity rather than an option if the sector is to become more resilient. The move towards a technology-driven education should be embraced with a sense of urgency. Any procrastination for whatever reason might be suicidal. Managing schools in the context of the ever-changing circumstances requires novel ideas. Post-COVID-19, there is now a reported decline in government revenues. This means if schools do not explore other streams of revenue, they should adapt to operate on a shoestring budget. It is also becoming very clear that overdependence on government revenue is not sustainable.

The decline in government revenue is a wake-up call, highlighting the need to ponder ways of keeping schools running outside government support. It is important to hold a national dialogue on the subject. Within government, there should be ample room to evolve a versatile and flexible system of governance that would satisfy pressing and emerging needs of the education sector.

One of the oldest stumbling blocks, predating COVID-19, is the challenge posed by bureaucracy. Bureaucracy places emphasis on a system of governance recognising hierarchy, centralised decision-making, and adherence to a set of rigid rules. While bureaucracy ensures uniformity, stability, and accountability, it has its own flaws. A hierarchical system concentrates all power in the hands of a few all-powerful people sitting at the top. The system works well when those at the top get it right. But things do not always go right. Even the best minds do err. If there is a lapse of judgement at the top, the whole system runs the risk of collapsing. There is also a challenge of red tape, which is a characteristic feature of bureaucracy.

The challenges inhibiting the provision of quality education demand quick decision-making. Red tape slows down decision-making, thus rendering the education system ineffective and unresponsive. The nature of school business dictates speedy mobilisation of critical teaching and learning inputs. Governments the world over have a notorious distinction of conducting business carefully and slowly for purposes of transparency and the avoidance of unnecessary errors.

There is every justification for the government to have rigid and water-tight financial procedures and protocols. However, rigid financial procedures make it difficult to meet the demands of the education sector. Schools that are fully government-funded experience long-winded and protracted processes of securing funding for critical projects due to red tape and rigid financial procedures. To mitigate the challenges, schools require extraordinary and audacious principals.

A courageous school principal thinks and acts on his/ her feet. A student and a results-oriented school principal do not always rely on conventional wisdom. Fully conscious of the present precarious financial situation, some of the school principals have already started mobilising parents and the business community to play prominent and active roles in shaping the destiny of schools. This is commendable. What is interesting is that parents in particular appear to be more than willing to form strategic partnerships with schools in the name of securing a prosperous future of their children. A school turnaround programme cannot do much better if frontline educators are fully in charge of the process. Frontline educators have better insights.