Tertiary Education
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With the future of the beauty industry in the hands of the next generation of therapists, JOANNA STERKOWICZ speaks to some top training institutions to find out what challenges they face and how they have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.
W
hile the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa has had a catastrophic effect on the economy, it also totally disrupted tertiary education study schedules. Says Yolandé Swanepoel, academic head of Isa Carstens Academy: “We had to adapt our teaching methodology to include online training for our theory components. This enabled us to restructure our academic programme to focus on the theory components during the lockdown period and we are in the process of phasing in our students in line with the legislation laid down by the Department of Higher Education and Training. “With the focus on the practical components when students return, we will be able to successfully teach out all final year students to still graduate, and for our 2nd and 3rd year students to progress to the next academic year.” As soon as President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the lockdown on 27 March, director of Soma Sense Academy, Menna Kleine, and her team prepared a revised timetable mainly focusing on the theoretical aspects of the programmes. She continues: “As most students did not own a laptop but owned smart phones, my ingenious team worked out that if the students bought a WhatsApp ticket for as little as R26, we could use this platform to send messages and lecturers could make small videos of the practical
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