| Abstrakt: |
Many historically black universities that were established in rural communities largely draw students from a rural background. Whilst these universities considered the fact of their rurality ambivalent as they sought to mimic their urban counterparts, rural students did not have that option. This has created alienation of rural students as their lived experiences are never acknowledged. For instance, in the wake of COVID-19, rural students, like all South African university students, had to flee to their respective communities where infrastructural development had hardly picked up. On the other hand, university lecturers many of whom had worked in more affluent universities did not take into account the infrastructural disparities in rural communities. This added to the negative rhetoric propagated against rural students as backward, lazy, and illiterate. The burden of internet connectivity has left both rural students and rural lecturers feeling inadequate and depressed. In that respect, this paper seeks to underscore how COVID-19 has exposed inequality between rurality and aspirations of a university which even though is located at a rural context operates under the ethos of urbanized university community. It highlights how rural students are not fully accommodated in their rural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
