Africa Up Close

The digital revolution has ushered in an era with significant implications for the skill sets required in the modern workplace. Consequently, higher education institutions across the African continent face the challenge of increasing capacity and relevance to accommodate increasing demands for training suited for the digital economy. In areas where expanding higher education access is hindered by physical infrastructure and trained faculty limitations, online instruction has the potential to increase capacity. A UNESCO report highlights that technology in education bridges capacity gaps and builds 21st-century skills lessening the digital skills divide between nations.

Until recently, the main obstacle in the deployment of online learning has been weak national Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructures. However, recent advances and increased connectivity across Africa have sufficiently improved to facilitate online learning. Although the maturity of ICT infrastructure varies, a number of African countries possess sufficient digital infrastructure to develop and deploy locally appropriate and viable online learning. For instance, in 2019, twelve African countries were cited by the Global Connectivity Index as having attained meaningful progress in deploying digital infrastructure and capability.

A more pressing obstacle to the deployment of online learning is linked to the lack of dedicated national policy frameworks and governance structures to regulate online learning. This absence is reflected in the lack of consistency, from one institution to the next, in program quality, instructor qualifications, and the very definition of online learning. Deployment of online learning requires careful planning and consideration, including appropriateness of technology, suitability of discipline and instructional approach, and teaching staff and student safeguards. A policy framework in the aforementioned areas that regulates quality and staffing is an essential component of the deployment of online learning.

COVID-19 closures illustrated the emerging challenges African institutions face in deploying online learning. First, although institutions demonstrated sufficient ICT capacity to deploy online learning, the deployment varied by institution. As campuses shuttered, instruction migrated to remote learning by leveraging existing online learning infrastructure—including some rolling out well-thought-out services with subsidized data for students, training for instructors, and license distribution of teaching resources.[1] Others simply informed instructors that resources were available and left it to instructors to decide how to participate, leading to inconsistent delivery of lectures and assignments.[2]

Second, there is long-held resistance by teaching staff to adopt educational technology and deliver instruction online. Before COVID-19, online instructions were mainly in revenue generating programs where instructors were incentivized through additional compensation structures. With the move of instruction remotely without a mandate, instructors—particularly senior faculty—were reluctant to move their courses and offer instruction through the online system, with some using email to distribute lessons and assignments.[3] There are numerous personal and professional reasons for instructors to not participate in online learning. One challenge was the perception lecturers have that migrating their courses online compromises their employment and research. These issues can be addressed through a policy framework that protects teaching staff and standardizes online instruction.

Last, coordination between an institution’s technology office and its academic units delivering instruction is critical for successfully deploying online instruction. A passive turf battle between academic and computing units is a significant challenge at the institutional level. Unlike other enterprise-level software, educational technology requires close collaboration between these two units. The selection of technology, the quality and format of content, and user analysis are a few areas that need access and input from units delivering instruction for the technology office to optimize functionality. The traditional division between administrative and academic units does not contribute to this collaboration, and a revisit of operational guidelines is required. For instance, a dedicated online learning office that breaks down the traditional division between tech support and academic units by housing computing and academic staff creates a collaborative space where technology can be seamlessly integrated into instruction and expand offerings to the entire campus.

The COVID-19 closures of the past two years have shown that many African institutions have the ICT infrastructure and technical capacity to deploy online learning in several modalities, from hybrid to blended and from asynchronized to synchronized. This is an important step forward in increasing access and institutional capacity. As the number of eligible students grows across the continent and learners seek flexible learning options, the potential of online learning to fill this demand is high, however, building confidence in the modality is the next step, which will require framework for the delivery of online learning.

[1] http://ug.edu.gh/announcements/update-university-ghana-online-teaching-and-learning and https://www.uonbi.ac.ke/news/status-learning-uon-during-covid-19-lockdown

[2] (Berhanu, 2021) https://cice.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/02-Berhanu-Abera-.pdf and (Olum, et al., 2020) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7682244/

[3] (Berhanu, 2021)

Azeb Tadesse is the Deputy Director of UCLA Capacity Building Center and PhD Candidate, UCLA School of Education. She is a Fulbright-Hays DDRA recipient for research on the integration of educational technology in higher education institutions.

Edmund Aalangdong, PhD, is the Head of Policy Planning, Monitoring and Compliance at the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC). He coordinates multinational programs such as the World Bank Africa Centres of Excellence Project (ACE I and II) and the IFC Employability skills project.

Photo credit: African students with friends wearing masks while sitting at a desk at a modern school by tong patong/shutterstock.com