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This paper explores how eLearning culture can be meaningfully instilled as an empowerment approach towards improved learning for an underprivileged rural institution. A qualitative study embedded in a case study design was undertaken. To collect data, semi-structured interviews were administered to three purposefully nominated participants. These were university teachers who rendered their teaching services in a university located within a rural community in one of the Eastern Cape Education Districts. The findings of this inquiry revealed that (i) quality teaching and learning, (ii) lack of eLearning resources and infrastructure, intertwined with (iii) attitudinal behavior from both teachers and learners, were results of inefficiency towards online learning. The study concludes with recommendations that there is an urgent need to invent motivation strategies as no single individual had ever anticipated the emergent turnaround in the entire universe, where all institutions of higher learning were forced to embark on online learning, disregarding diverseness and rurality of learner-teacher constituencies thereof, as recipients in the schooling environments.

The main objective of this investigation is to explore whether COVID 19 deaths have effects with regards to language proficiency, predominantly reading. Reading levels seem to have deteriorated as difficulties in spelling and pronunciation of simple English words were demonstrated by learners. In this qualitative inquiry, the author used a case study. The researcher perceived it essential for a qualitative approach to be embarked on hence investigating teachers’ life experiences in their natural, context-specific settings. Semi-structured interviews were administered to ten conveniently nominated secondary school teachers. A narrative analysis was used to categorize data into themes that were noted as findings of this examination. A major finding of this inquiry was (i) sudden lack of parental involvement emanating from the (ii) drastic shift in socio-relations amongst the members of the communities, this causing reading to become an overwhelming routine. The study concludes that academic attainment for most learners seems to be hindered by the decline in learner reading proficiencies. To curb the situation, it is therefore recommended that language teachers devise approaches to instill a reading culture within a classroom setting, thus limiting tasks to be administered after school hours.