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The novel Corona virus resulted in lockdown measures being put in place in order to curb the spread of the virus. This led to the closure of all schools and tertiary institutions. In Zimbabwe, the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science, and Technology Development (MHEISTD) announced the suspension of face-to-face teaching and learning and indicated that learning would continue online. This was an unexpected new experience for tertiary students. This study sought to explore the experiences and challenges faced by tertiary students in Gweru in adapting to online learning during the lockdown induced by COVID-19. The study was a netnographic study in which a cybercommunity of fifty tertiary students from five different tertiary institutions in Gweru was created. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to select the students who participated in a WhatsApp group. The students participated in text discussions, voice calls, and group discussions and responded to questions probed by the researcher. The results showed that online learning was a new frontier in their learning experiences, and they faced several challenges in adapting to its use. The study concluded that tertiary institutions should embrace blended learning in order to adequately prepare for online learning by both lecturers and students in times of disasters and pandemics like COVID-19, which restrict face-to-face learning. The study recommended that tertiary institutions equip students and lecturers with the skills to adapt to online teaching and learning. Students should be provided with the requisite online learning tools in order to effectively participate in online teaching and learning activities.

There is an abounding plurality and diversity of cultures and religions in the contemporary world. Globalisation has created a widespread awareness of this fact. Founders of African Independent Churches (AICs) realised this fact and embraced the cultural and religious appreciation of their followers for the establishment and survival of their church organisations. This suggests that interreligious and cultural harmony can be achieved by developing an understanding of other cultural and religious traditions while appreciating the values inherent within them. We advance the religious diversity of AICs in accommodating their members’ cultural beliefs. Focus was on the Guta Ra Jehova (GRJ) Church as we explored its theological deportment with respect to appeasing avenging spirits as a religious and cultural belief among the Shona. Through unstructured interviews and participant observation, we gathered data sufficient to demonstrate that some AICs such as the GRJ Church practise acculturation by accommodating and blending African cultural and religious beliefs with Christian principles. Our findings demonstrated that some AICs did not move much away from their followers’ cultural beliefs with respect to the way they relate with the dead. In this regard, the GRJ Church developed ways of dealing with social problems associated with avenging spirits in ways which its members culturally understand.

In this paper we seek to explain the relevance of introducing Computer Studies in Zimbabwean rural schools as a means to reduce the access to Information Communication Technology (ICT) gap between rural and urban schools. We first acknowledge the efforts of various stakeholders in education in introducing the Information Communication Technology curriculum in rural schools in the last ten or so years as a commitment to bringing Science and Technology to the rural pupil. In addition, we further explore the progress that has been made by rural schools that received computers from the Head of State and Government over the years. In the process, however, we observe that most rural schools have not fully embraced the ICT curriculum owing to a number of challenges. Thus, we contend in this paper that most rural schools that received donated computers in Zimbabwe had not been capacitated to fully utilise the new technology for the benefit of pupils, teachers and the community. As a result, most of the gadgets have been lying idle in classrooms due to lack of either proper infrastructural facilities such as computer laboratories and electricity as well as lack of trained ICT teachers. In the final submission, we implore stakeholders in education to facilitate ICT development in rural schools in Zimbabwe so as to increase access, quality and equity in education for sustainable rural development in Southern Africa.

Marginalization means being disregarded, ostracized, harassed, disliked, persecuted, or generally looked down upon. Marginalized people often include women and children, the poor, the disabled, sexual, religious, or ethnic minorities, refugees. The marginalized are those who are socially, politically, culturally, or economically excluded from main-stream society. In history, the Church in Zimbabwe has played a role in improving the lives of the marginalized, but what is religion, especially Christianity, doing for the marginalized now? Although religion is also implicated in marginalisation, the contributions in this volume did not address this angle as they focused on the role that religion can and should play to fight marginalization. The chapters come from two conferences (2012, 2014) that were held under the flag of ATISCA. The contributions have been updated to include later developments and publications.