This could be due to a lack of resources like data and laptops.

The university is one of several historically disadvantaged institutions in the country.

It hopes to raise R100-million to fund laptops and data for needy students.

“Our efforts are gonna be directed at the international community, we have partner universities all over the world," said UWC spokesperson, Gasant Abarder.

"But we also have contact with donors, multinationals who have their revenue in dollars, pounds and euros, who can afford to give a lot more.”

Other historically disadvantaged institutions like Walter Sisulu University are assessing which students require resources to learn from home.

Until this is complete, teaching is halted in some of its programmes.

OFM News earlier reported that the University of the Free State's (UFS) Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Francis Petersen, says he has established a Special Executive Group, consisting of six different task teams, to assess and manage the overall impact of COVID-19 on the university, and the completion of the 2020 academic programme. 

"Students will continue this semester at home by making use of the internet. We are looking at the development of low-tech approaches to learning and teaching that are sensitive to the challenges of connectivity, bandwidth, and the type of devices that our students have, realising the deep socio-economic inequalities and digital divide in society.

"We have asked our students to help us understand how we can help them best. This includes understanding how they can access the internet, and how they can study on their own. We are redesigning our academic content so that it takes up as little data as possible. 

"We have created a publication for students, called Keep Calm, #UFSLearnOn. This publication has been widely shared with students to support them and help them study online and to manage their academic workload during this period. You can find these resources at this link: www.ufs.ac.za/learnon

eNCA/OFM News