E-learning for smart-universities: pandemic challenges and opportunities in Morocco

Abstract

Both ICT and internet have become a vital part of citizens’ daily lives. In fact, many aspects of cities, including culture, economy, education have become closely linked to ICT. Accordingly, the concept of the smart city has emerged to attract the interest of governments, companies, educational institutions and Universities [1]. In Morocco, most universities or higher education institutions have always been interested in keeping up with the fast-paced world of technology and integrate ICT in mainstream education. However, most attempts to initiate smart universities is always faced with a series of challenges and constraints. Most of which are related to lack of infrastructure, students’ and professors’ lack of technological readiness, and socio-economic inequality among students. Most recently, due to COVID-19, universities are forced to resort to emergency remote learning and scramble different options of e-learning as a dire need to tackle the current educational crisis which creates a certain chaos due to lack of readiness to an advanced technological application. This paper is an attempt to discuss the challenges posed and opportunities offered using e-learning to deal with the new normal (Covid-19) in different educational levels in general and higher education in particular. Significantly, this paper reviews most of that has been said about online learning, describes some of the conducted empirical studies, and calls for implementing e-learning as an innovative teaching strategy for smart universities.