Equitable and Quality Education for All of Africa? The Challenges of Using ict in Education

Abstract

Technological advances are increasing interest in the potential role of information and communication technologies (ict) in enabling quality education outcomes in Africa. At present, however, the geographies of ict use in Africa is poorly understood, and ict education policy development has occurred in a relative empirical void. Relevant studies have largely been focused on wealthier African nations, largely neglecting poorer regions where education issues are most acute. This article works to address this lacuna. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork, it provides a detailed snapshot of ict use in education in the northern Sierra Leonean district of Koinadugu. We subsequently argue that a lack of access to electricity, along with limited numbers of qualified teaching staff, presents fundamental barriers for realizing ict use in classroom settings. Nevertheless, we also identify some promising trends with respect to the informal use of mobile Internet by teachers and students to augment learning in the classroom.

Ethnographies of electricity scarcity: Mobile phone charging spaces and the recrafting of energy poverty in Africa

“…Initially, mobile network coverage was limited, and operating costs were highphones and credit had to be purchased in US dollars. Thus, by 2004, only around 2% of the population, a small urban elite, could afford to own and use mobile phones (Sesay 2004 Sierra Leonean mobile phone ownership is now claimed by over 50% of the population, while network coverage (over 80%) is widespread (Sam, 2015;Samarakoon et al, 2017). Mobile phone ownership and use rates will almost certainly continue to increase, as the influx of cheap smartphones from China, along the relatively low cost of pre-paid data plans, has enabled greater accessibility to poorer (although perhaps not the poorest) socioeconomic households (Sam, 2015).…”

“…household's income, to ensure their mobile phones are operational. This is an increasing concern as people in Sierra Leone gradually shift from using Nokia and similar type ‗brick phones' that require relatively irregular charging, to energy hungry smartphones (Samarakoon et al, 2017). At the same time, mobile charging station operators have to contend with the precarities of affording diesel fuel and generator maintenance to sustain their beacons of electricity supply for the rural energy scarce populace The days of the diesel-powered charging stations could well be numbered, due to new entrants into this energyscape.…”

A bio-environmental perspective on Emirati female college students’ experiences in virtual learning communities of inquiry

“…For instance, Rhema and Miliszewske ( 2012 ) found Libya’s ongoing political crisis created educational setbacks in face-to-face format and resulted in a lack of motivation among teachers and students. Similar situations exist in conflict-torn and under-developed areas such as the Middle East and Africa (Ehsan & Faqiry, 2021 ; Samarakoon et al, 2017 ). The use of technology-assisted learning was proposed to reintroduce functionality and advance the presence of e-learning.…”

Bangladeshi ready‐made garment development via ubiquitous and mobile computing

“…J. E. Bardram and Matic (2020), C. Kim et al (2019), W. N. Picoto et al (2014) purported that MbUS is very suitable for developing countries, as mobile uptake is huge and the distribution of mobile platforms is of low cost. Despite the huge affordances of MbUS, the extant literature on MbUS has only been applied to banking (known as mobile banking) (Kadušić et al, 2011), health (m‐health) (Dwivedi et al, 2016), education (Samarakoon et al, 2017) and tourism (T. C. Lin, 2014), whereas research analyzing MbUS affordances for the manufacturing sector such as RMG, remains sparse. Thus, the latter point forms the main motivation for conducting this research (Gao et al, 2014).…”