**2. Background of the study**

Ninety nine percent of the global students were disrupted and most of the educational institutions of higher learning closed specifically in lower-middle income nations [1, 2]. Interestingly, Africa Higher institutions of learning struggled to adapt to the new normal because of infrastructural, computing equipment deficiency as well as lack of technological resources [3]. Access to technology, innovative capacity and organizational strategy to knowledge translation is posited as major areas to focus on future studies [3]. This study is motivated to gain more focus on educational sustainable innovations implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill and threatened human life, forcing government to implement stay at home strategy [3, 4]. Businesses, schools, and Higher education institutions were closed while national governments crafted sustainable solutions to contain the disease. Organizations grappled to innovate and implement strategies that promote work from home strategy to minimize face to face contact, and universities were not spared either.

### **3. Problem statement**

COVID-19 has challenged many organizations' agility in responding to national disasters. Institutions of higher were forced to close and educational assessments were challenged and the authenticity of graduands during this period was highly questioned [4–6]. Many innovations were implemented including use of social media, Televisions, zoom., Microsoft teams, google teams to disseminate information that could of more importance to knowledge sharing between the instructor and student. However, the cost of internet, internet devices and the ability to use this technology were major obstacles to use e-learning for universities [4, 5, 7]. Given such interesting insights, the current study seeks to investigate the technological innovations that universities implemented during the Corona virus pandemic period. The Digital divide, internet infrastructure, data band width, user capacity, and computer devices are posited as some of the challenges universities faced during the COVID-19 era [8–10]. Additionally, the study focused on challenges that hindered e-learning operations. Desktop literature review was implemented to solicit data in the context of Zimbabwe and South Africa universities respectively.

### **4. Research questions**

**Research question 1:** What are the educational innovations that were implemented during COVID-19 pandemic by South African and Zimbabwean Universities?

**Research question 2:** What are the challenges encountered by both the students and lectures in effectively carrying out e-learning sessions?

#### **4.1 Sub question**

How were the examinations monitored during this COVID-19 pandemic?

To answer these questions a systematic literature review was conducted in the context of the two geographical locations.
