Digital Learning Readiness of Higher Education Institutions in the 4IR Era during the COVID-19 pandemic: Case of a University in South Africa

The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) has brought different concepts such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) as well as Big data analysis. Thus, digital learning has also been introduced; it is a learning vehiculated utilizing technology. With the current COVID 19 crisis, digital learning has become the best learning method by South African institutions by excellence, but how ready are they, though? This is the question this study attempts to answer. The study follows a case study approach on a South African University located in Johannesburg. A convenience sample was used with 168 students from the faculty of engineering that took part in the study. Data were collected using a questionnaire that was administered to the respondents. The questionnaire collected the respondents' demographical information, awareness of digital learning, and accessibility to digital learning tools. The data collected were captured on Microsoft Excel before being analyzed with SPSS for further results. The study revealed that most of the respondents are aware of digital learning even though it is not implemented in all modules at the University. Accessibility to essential tools to digital learning such as the internet and the devices to connect is still a big challenge for students mainly as most of them cannot afford the internet-connected devices. Although the general perspective is that higher institutions in South Africa are not yet ready for digital learning due to the infrastructure availability, many practices toward digital learning are being implemented. There are high hopes to believe in well-implemented digital learning Universities in the next decades.