Abstract
COVID-19 has affected almost every nation since it hit in 2020. Global corporations, trade, economies, health protocols and education have all been impacted by the pandemic. Now, in 2023, many countries continue to struggle with education provision.
In March 2020, a global call for schools to close was made. This was done to prevent the rapid spread of the disease. The impact of such closures directly affected curriculum delivery. Many independent schools faced permanent closure if alternatives to traditional teaching and learning were not implemented. This sparked the move towards online learning and the use of online teaching platforms. Those institutions that were able to incorporate the transition to online teaching into their existing curriculum delivery systems were for the most part successful. Learners had to work from home while schools made rapid transformations to accommodate them.
In South African schools, teachers faced the same dilemma as other countries around the world. Learners were missing too much of work and the academic year was moving on. Drastic changes to the curriculum were made by the Department of Education to ensure that learners received the basics to complete their academic year.
This study examined the experiences of primary school teachers’ use of ICTs during the COVID-19 lockdown. A generic qualitative approach was adopted for the study and purposeful sampling was applied for participant selection. Data was collected using structured interviews and then analysed using ATLAS-ti.
The research study found that while teachers were prepared to use ICTs through an online platform to teach during the pandemic, they do require further skills development training.
Keywords: Covid-19; online learning; primary school teachers; information and communication technologies.