On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization upgraded the outbreak of COVID-19 to pandemic status. On 15 March 2020, the South African president declared a national state of disaster under the Disaster Management Act of 2002. On 26 March 2020, national lockdown, which included measures stipulated in guidelines for education in emergencies, was implemented in South Africa. The presidential declaration and subsequent lockdown came at a time when some of the universities in South Africa were already struggling either to commence the academic year, or to make up for time lost due to persistent student protests relating to several student demands. However, disaster management now entailed that all schools and institutions of higher education were forced to close immediately for extended periods, necessitating alternative ways of ensuring access to education. The qualitative case study presented in this article sought to document the intervention strategies developed by two universities located in remote parts of Eastern Cape Province to deliver education during the COVID-19 restrictions. A second aim was an examination of the challenges experienced by the two institutions’ largely rural student population. The authors collected data using a questionnaire completed by 15 educators and 30 students from the two universities. They also analysed official communications documents from the universities addressed to lecturers and students. The results indicate that access to online teaching and learning platforms and resources for students from poor rural communities in South Africa is challenging, and that there are gross inequalities in educational outcomes for learners from different socio-economic backgrounds. This affects the future plans of higher education institutions to provide teaching and learning through online-based platforms. The authors conclude their article by providing recommendations to support online learning in rural areas, which has the potential to expand higher education access post-COVID-19.

2020 年 3 月 11 日，世界卫生组织将 COVID-19 的爆发升级为大流行状态。2020 年 3 月 15 日，南非总统根据 2002 年《灾害管理法》宣布全国进入灾害状态。2020 年 3 月 26 日，南非实施了全国封锁，其中包括紧急情况教育指南中规定的措施。总统宣言和随后的封锁是在南非的一些大学已经在努力开始学年或弥补由于与若干学生要求有关的持续学生抗议而失去的时间的时候。然而，灾害管理现在需要所有学校和高等教育机构被迫立即关闭很长一段时间，需要替代方法来确保获得教育。本文提出的定性案例研究旨在记录位于东开普省偏远地区的两所大学制定的干预策略，以在 COVID-19 限制期间提供教育。第二个目标是检查这两个机构的大部分农村学生所面临的挑战。作者使用由两所大学的 15 名教育工作者和 30 名学生完成的问卷调查收集数据。他们还分析了大学发给讲师和学生的官方通讯文件。结果表明，南非贫困农村社区的学生访问在线教学平台和资源具有挑战性，并且来自不同社会经济背景的学习者的教育成果存在严重不平等。这影响了高等教育机构未来通过在线平台提供教学和学习的计划。作者通过提供支持农村地区在线学习的建议来结束他们的文章，这有可能在 COVID-19 之后扩大高等教育机会。