Abstract:
There has been a myriad of negative implications on teaching and learning at tertiary level that came
along with the emergence of Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the lessons
and opportunities presented by the pandemic to the learning and teaching process in Higher
Educational Institutions (HEIs). The study employed a survey design and used diary and semistructured questionnaires as key data generation tools. A sample of 80 lecturing staff was used from
three HEIs in Lesotho adopting a stratified random sampling. The findings from the study suggest that
the implementation of online teaching and learning brought positive implications to Lesotho’s HEIs as
most of the sampled respondents supported the intervention. The study also revealed that the COVID19 pandemic exposed shortcomings such as a lack of staff capacity to teach online, adoption of blended
learning, and teaching and infrastructural preparedness in tertiary institutions. The study further
suggests that there is a need to redevelop and redesign the curriculum, harmonize policies of teaching
and assessment, and align them to online learning and teaching. The study recommended an inclusive
stakeholder approach at the national and institutional level to drafting and implementing online
learning supportive policies. Further research is recommended to quality regulators of tertiary
institutions to understand their insights and perceptions of adopting online teaching and learning in
HEIs
