| 26 March 2020 Issue No: 262 SOUTH AFRICA Laura Czerniewicz  Protracted student protests in South Africa over the past few years gave universities an opportunity to explore online education as an alternative to contact teaching and learning, and have put them in a better position to deal with current shutdowns necessitated by the need to contain COVID-19. Here, an academic from the University of Cape Town shares her experience and that of her colleagues in the process of "going online". | TUNISIA-AFRICA Wagdy Sawahel A Tunisian students' union has roundly rejected a proposal by the government to move classes online and has called for a boycott of enrolment on online education platforms, raising questions about how feasible an option online education is in many African countries. | EAST AFRICA John Agaba In the wake of closures that took effect at midday on Friday 20 March, a number of universities and higher education institutions in East Africa are revitalising existing e-learning platforms, while others are tentatively migrating into uncharted territory. | AFRICA Willie Chinyamurindi ETHIOPIA-AFRICA Wondwosen Tamrat  A vice-chancellor of a private university in Ethiopia shares his experiences and lessons learned after his institution and its management urgently rallied to respond to an immediate nationwide shutdown of all educational institutions prompted by efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic. SOUTH AFRICA Edwin Naidu  One of South Africa's most outspoken academics, Professor Adam Habib, vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, has called for a national solution to tackle 'professional students' on campuses throughout the country – some of whom he claims are permanent organisers for political parties. AFRICA Sharon Dell  In the two weeks since the last edition of University World News – Africa was published on 12 March 2020, the entire face of African higher education has changed as, one-by-one, country-wide closures of schools and universities have been announced and have taken effect. | AFRICA Sharon Dell and Wagdy Sawahel | AFRICA Wagdy Sawahel | | NORTHERN CYPRUS-AFRICA Eve Ruwoko | RWANDA Jean d'Amour Mbonyinshuti | | NORTH AFRICA Wagdy Sawahel | SOUTH AFRICA Sharon Dell | | EGYPT-AFRICA Wagdy Sawahel | KENYA Christabel Ligami | GLOBAL Kalyani Unkule  Predictions that nothing much will change as a result of the coronavirus strike me as a reflection of the inherent biases and binaries of international higher education. Instead we should be directing our efforts towards engaging with globalisation and its discontents more proactively. | GLOBAL Xin Xu | GLOBAL Martin Hamilton | | CANADA Alison Jefferson | GLOBAL Isabel Toman, Stefanie Mallow and Hilligje van't Land | | GLOBAL Ellen Hazelkorn | GLOBAL Guillermo J Creus | CHINA Huili Han  Professors are taking double, even triple workloads to try to adapt to online teaching as a result of the novel coronavirus. But what are the major challenges they face in switching to online teaching and how can they be effectively addressed? Here are some solutions. UNITED STATES Brendan O'Malley  The presidents of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University have issued a joint plea to all higher education institutions and all other organisations across America to follow their example and take drastic action to address the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. | 
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