Abstract:
While global corporations and western governments have subtly and systematically
peddled the utopia and hype about the capacity of information and communication
technologies (ICTs) to radically transform learning and pedagogy and African
governments have unquestionably acquiesced with heft investments in ICTs the
education sector, few academics and policy makers have ever questioned and taken stock
of the contribution of technology to online learning. More importantly, the heavy
investments in ICTs infrastructure modeled along Western ICTs hubs have been
parachuted without sufficient contextualisation to suit the structural realities of resource
constrained environments. Moreso, hardly have interventions been aligned with
academics and learners’ extent of e-readiness and ICT literacy levels to ensure effective
appropriation, adaptation and sustained use of ICTs. Drawing on African examples and
Mozambican education system as a case study, we demonstrate the complexities and
subtle nuances of consolidating ICTs access for teaching and learning in an environment
riddled by abject poverty, weak erratic power supply, underdeveloped ICTs architecture
and cultural barriers that undermine certain societal groups’ access to ICTs. We argue
that the institution of a robust ICT architecture at national and institutional levels should
be constructively aligned with its grassroot implementation (at institutional levels) to
foster epistemological access to ICTs, the development of ‘best practices’ of pedagogy
and a culturally responsive, knowledge rich environments. We further argue that ICTs
should become bridging zones for the integration and alignment of community based
knowledge (tacit, personal knowledge) and institutional (school) knowledge through creating liberal spaces for their experimentation with different forms of knowledge
(Rambe forthcoming).
