Digital Transformation in South Africa's Higher Education Landscape

Over the past few years, digital transformation (DT) has evolved into relevance in a range of industries, including higher education, to create access to education and improve the quality of education. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought these issues to light, particularly for students from low-income families, emphasising the importance of finding digital solutions. The purpose of this study is to assess the state of digital transformation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on South Africa's higher education, including the challenges and opportunities offered and how South African universities (higher education institutions - HEIs) adapted to teaching, learning, and assessment during and after the pandemic. The study followed a qualitative research approach based on a narrative literature review (desk review) to address the research objectives of the study and applied content analysis to identify relevant themes and subthemes. The study has established that digital technologies are crucial to improving the teaching, learning, and research processes of academic institutions within the context of higher education. The study has found that pre-COVID-19, South African higher education institutions were already on the path to digital transformation with marked financial constraints, inadequate infrastructure, and human capital issues. The major disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic was instrumental in accelerating digital adoption in teaching, learning, and assessment. Post-COVID-19, South African universities are seen to adopt a hybrid teaching and learning model. Moving forward and taking lessons from the experience of the pandemic, South African universities should embrace digital transformation to improve access, inclusion, and quality of education.