The University of Pretoria’s (UP) Faculty of Law recently hosted a webinar to discuss teaching under COVID-19 and whether conditions brought on by the pandemic compromised the LLB curriculum or enhanced it through the use of technological innovations.

According to Dr Freddy Mnyongani, Academic Leader: Teaching and Learning, School of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal: the Council on Higher Education (CHE) expects a university to produce a “well-rounded” LLB graduate and this is embedded in the documents that outline the standard that must be followed. The documents indicate that a graduate must have critical thinking skills, research skills, problem managing skills, self-management and collaboration skills and must service the community, he said.

“Graduates must have the knowledge and skills to navigate information technology [and] for our graduates to be competent with technology, institutions must make information resources available to them. Every institution has a responsibility to make sure that they have the technology that will enhance the product that they deliver to their students, whether in the form of research [or] lecture venues,” said Dr Mnyongani. “CHE also indicates that law graduates are conversant with regulatory framework that governs the use of technology. Every law school must ensure that there are modules that expose students to issues such as cyber-crime, cyber law, intellectual property, law issues in as far as they relate to the use of technology. Our students need to use technology as tools to research, organise, evaluate and communicate information.”

He added that proper organising and communicating information can be achieved if students make use of technology. “Some tasks given to students must require them to use a particular device or instrument to be able to achieve the module’s objectives or goals. The use of technology has always been part of what CHE had planned for higher learning institutions. In 2018, CHE indicated to schools and university faculties that they must have e-learning platforms, and those platforms must not be used as repositories of information but used as pedagogical tools. However, the use of technology must not replace contact classes. CHE indicated that we must use technology to supplement our face-to-face teaching. As schools were busy preparing for this process, plans were disrupted by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and forced many higher learning institutions to go fully online.” 

Adding to the conversation, Professor Gustav Muller, Associate Professor, Department of Private Law, UP, said the pandemic has revealed vulnerabilities in higher education with regards to teaching and learning as well as continuous professional development and training for staff. “It also highlighted areas that are in desperate need of development, but also revealed and highlighted those areas where there is an opportunity to build resilience.”

Dr Jani van Wyk, lecturer in the Department of Mercantile Law, UP, said it is important to have both students and lecturers use technology in their approaches.

“As the pandemic continued to ominously hover over us, information technology, with its myriad of opportunities, provided us with a temporary refuge from the onslaught of the pandemic. With our strategies for teaching online, and our online pedagogies, it is evidently clear that using technological innovations, albeit as a supplement to our contact mode of teaching,  will enhance the LLB curriculum to be better placed to produce well-rounded law graduates.”

Click here to watch full session

This webinar took place on 15 September 2021 and is the third lecture in UP Law’s monthly Teaching and Learning Lecture Series.

Lecture 2: ‘We cannot use technology in isolation’ – UP Faculty of Law hosts second lecture in series on online teaching and learning and finding a way forward post COVID-19

Lecture 1: UP Law lecture reflects on teaching and learning using technological innovations during and post-COVID-19