Prospects and Challenges for the Sustainability of online embedded learning approaches in African Universities beyond Covid-19.

Covid-19 has changed the higher education landscape, influencing several changes in the teaching environment. Higher educational institutions have been pushed towards implementing virtual learning to meet students' changing needs and reach a broader audience. The shrinking budget to support educational endeavours demands greater integration among institutions. However, technological advancement has posed more significant challenges to staff and academics working in higher education institutions. As a result, higher education institutions have started continuous development and providing learning opportunities for their staff to become more efficient and skilful in driving their institutions into the future. Over the years, the roles and responsibilities of academics have become more dynamic, diverse, and complex. The context of knowledge production and its measurement has influenced the performance of higher education institutions. The evolving disciplines and sub-discipline have differentiated knowledge gradually by providing a framework for today's knowledge acquisition structure. Academics are expected to become curriculum designers to meet the market demands of their programmes. Academics are also expected to be technology experts, administrators, researchers, teachers, and supervisors. Such changes require continuous development for academics in various areas. Though higher education has responded slowly to external changes, the challenges are extreme. Higher education institutions face several external challenges ranging from internet use, declining government support and the increasing number of new students' demands. As a result, academics have devoted the acquisition of knowledge and expertise through peer review and flat organisational structure to bind academics to their area of scholarship. The paper concludes that going beyond Covid-19, the labour market has set out conditions and positions outside academia and career pathways that define how learning should occur in an academic or professional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]