The vindication of decoloniality and the reality of COVID-19 as an emergency of unknown in rural universities

Abstract

COVID-19 was adjudged as a pandemic by the World Health Organization in February 2020. This deadly, contagious, and easy-to-spread virus has plunged the world into a tentative cul-de-sac, inclusive of the university education system. By implication, the abrupt national lockdown in South Africa cut rural universities unaware as an insurgence against its operationalisation, teaching, and learning process. In my argument, it further confirms the need to decolonise rural universities, to be able to respond to every unforeseen emergency, as an underside of coloniality. This study is lensed through Transformative Paradigm (TP), Participatory Research (PR) was used as a research design. The participants consisted of 15 people, five management staff, five lecturers and five students in a selected rural university. Online and phone interviews were used to collect data from the participants because the participants are under national lockdown, and the data were analysed using Thematic Analysis. Low technology and innovative space in rural universities and students, lecturers and university’s disadvantage background were found as the major challenges vindicating the quest for decoloniality in rural universities. Also, the compulsory used of technological innovation within the university and contingency plan for/by the stakeholders are achievable with Assets-Based Approach.