Critical Perspectives of Educational Technology in Africa: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation

By Bellarmine A. Ezumah

This book is a critical-cultural evaluation of educational technology adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa, including projects such as the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child). It presents efficient ways of improving education delivery among low-income communities through designing and implementing congruent educational technologies that incorporate social and cultural proclivities. Ezumah defines technology with regards to pedagogy, and seeks to debunk the assumption that educational technology consists only of digital and interactive options. Additionally, she argues for a narrative paradigm shift aimed at validating analog technologies as equally capable of providing necessary and desired educational objectives and outcomes for communities who cannot afford the digital alternatives. By comparing African educational systems in precolonial, colonial, and post-colonial times and incorporating the history of technology transfers from the Global North to South, the book highlights cultural imperialism, development theory, neocolonialism, and hegemonic tendencies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Oct 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9783030537289

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© The Author(s) 2020

B. A. EzumahCritical Perspectives of Educational Technology in AfricaDigital Education and Learninghttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53728-9_1

1. Introduction and Background

Bellarmine A. Ezumah¹  

(1)

Journalism and Mass Communication, Murray State University, Murray, KY, USA

Bellarmine A. Ezumah

Email: [e-mail]

The idea for this book began in 2009, some 10 years ago when I was completing my graduate studies at Howard University. With a seven-year experience as Utilization Coordinator and later, Director of Instructional Technology for Catholic elementary and high schools in New York City (Brooklyn and Queens), I became aware, firsthand, the role technology—both analog and digital—play in improving teaching and learning. Therefore, it piqued my interest to review ways that educational technology might be efficiently conceived, designed, implemented, and evaluated especially for low-income and poor communities of the world. The earliest version of this work was informed by an empirical study integrating an extensive formative evaluation of the famous One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO-tablet initiative of MIT and Nicholas Negroponte. Later, I continued the quest by reviewing African homegrown educational technologies to ascertain their success and how effective they render teaching and learning in elementary and secondary education sectors. One of such studies was conducted in Osun State of Nigeria with the Opon Imo (Tablet of knowledge) which was a contrivance of the then Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Odesoji Aregbesola. This book presents several years of inquiry on the best practices and most efficient ways to improve education among low-income communities and regions of the world through designing and implementing congruent educational technologies. The result indicates that certain challenges of Western-transferred educational technologies are present even in homegrown technologies. The broader view of this work therefore takes two perspectives; first, it defines what constitutes technology with regards to education and seeks to debunk the assumption that educational technology consists only of digital technologies. This work additionally launches a campaign for a paradigm shift aimed at validating analog technologies as equally capable of providing necessary and desired educational objectives and outcomes. Unbeknownst to many, books, pencils, desks, etc., are technologies and for certain communities, obtaining them would be a great achievement and improvement for learning. This line of argument poses an alternative theoretical action-oriented framework for designing and utilizing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) dissimilar to the general ethos of digitizing the planet by a certain timeframe.

Akin to the purpose of reframing and redefining the meaning of technology, this volume emphasizes the need for a participatory approach incorporating stakeholders at all levels for an effective plan, design, implementation, and evaluation of educational technology especially of those initiatives that are transferred from the Global North or Western countries to developing countries. This will involve among other things, a consideration of cultural peculiarities.

While the focus is Africa, one of the major contributions of this book is a model proposed via a flow chart (the Ezumah Model, presented in Chapter 7) as a prototype that can be adapted and adopted as any community deems applicable. While myriads of studies in the area of educational technology reformation focus on cost, technical assistance, environmental challenges such as power and need for sustenance as well as teacher-training and curriculum, in addition to all these, this work presents a critical-cultural lens that can inform all stakeholders—designers, implementers, and users of the technology. Yes, critical cultural, because, culture accentuates and solidifies a community, it is an inevitable fabric in any community’s tapestry and so removing it renders the community incomplete. Similarly, including culture in technology design renders such technology specific to the said community. Moreover, education and learning do not exist in a vacuum; they align with, and within every given community alongside their cultural identities and proclivities—all these play vital roles and should be considered in the decision making for any chosen education delivery modality.

Central to popular perception of global educational technology adoption is a leapfrog frenzy that compels most low-income communities of the world to jump into the bandwagon of digital technology or ICT for all—toward preparing students all over the world for a digital twenty-first century. In alignment with the old development theory, the erroneous opinion asserts or at least suggests, by introducing computers and other digital tablets to poor schools even those that cannot provide notebooks and textbooks for their students, they will leapfrog into a digitized community and such equates development. Borrowing Brock-Utne’s (2000) famous title Whose Education for All? While considering ICT for all, I pose similar question—Whose ICT? And most importantly, Which ICT? Are we promoting digital educational technology for all or educational technology for all? Technology generally refers to concepts, ideas, objects, or artifacts that can be employed in solving a problem or improving a situation. Therefore, educational technology is equally any of the above-mentioned ideas or artifacts that can be employed to solving any challenge or problem associated with pedagogy or simply, put, improving teaching and learning. Perhaps a more appropriate nomenclature might be the term educational technology - edutech instead of digital ICT (as there is this embedded meaning in ICT that refers to specifically digital). Conversely, with regard to edutech, there is a broad spectrum of what is available and what should constitute the technology in question. However, ICT narrows down the choice and the C then becomes the operative word. A book is an education technology—whether exercise book or textbook but it lacks the popular opinion of C in communication or at least synchronous interaction as we know it in the twenty-first century. So, the operant C then forces policymakers, administrators, teachers, and parents to look beyond other affordable and equally effective technologies to focus on technologies with interactive communication capacity.

Technology is not synonymous with digital or computer-mediated alone. Therefore, technology should be examined in a timeline of development which requires looking at it from a continuum instead of distinguishing it as standalone or a binary opposition of digital versus analog. Both are not distinct per se; but share an inter-relational existence in a continuum whereby one cannot exist without the prior existence or later existence of the other. This symbiotic relationship demands a seamless developmental trajectory that moves along in sequence as guided by the speed of available resources congruent to a particular region or milieu. Correspondingly, educational technology adoption and implementation decisions should be guided by the availability of infrastructure and other essential resources, and not by applying digital technological determinism, a mindset that believes digital technology shapes society and if we engage in digital technology, we automatically transition into a digital nation, natives, and ultimately development.

Definitely, a sustainable digital education technology is preferred to a backward analog alternative. But, if the leapfrogging that is needed for a particular community is a textbook, an exercise book, a classroom, pens, and pencils,—then those will very well be meaningful; as opposed to leapfrogging to a full-blown digital tablet that in a few months or years proves unsustainable. I understand this is not the popular narrative as far as educational technology discourse in the twenty-first century is concerned; this frame of mind requires a reorientation on the part of local and international bodies for many reasons. First, studies have shown that a good number of digital technological investments in developing countries, Africa in particular, have met with alarming failure rates, and there is rarely effective assessment of those projects. While each emergent technology seems to displace and replace the previous ones promising a more effective outcome, especially the technologies that are designed and implemented in Western countries, that realization has been far-fetched. With such attestations, multilateral institutions, institutions of learning, ministers of education, and countries at large are vigorously investing in educational technology in their quest to meet demands in the global market. Such transplanting method does not necessarily work in low-income communities due to several challenges. In light of all these, there is an urgent need to evaluate educational programs in Africa because technology when effectively designed and implemented can transform Africa especially in education delivery which in turn can lead to social and economic development.

But what is also often problematic is a practice I choose to call the Messianic-heroic compulsion which propels technology innovators, designers, and chief executive officers to select the remotest districts and schools to deploy their device so as to yield the greatest possible effect thus, manifesting a ground-breaking result that catapults a school located in one of the remotest villages to be at par with schools in a Western Metropolis. One such example is the OLPC project which targeted poor schools who are unable to provide pens and pencils for all pupils. During my fieldwork in 2009 at LEA Galadima School located in the inner city of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria and Kanda V Primary School also located in inner-city Accra (the capital of Ghana), several parents who wished to participate in the study had no transportation fare to come back to school a second time (after they have trekked several kilometers to drop off their children in the morning) just to participate in the research process while many of the students had no writing materials. Most students equally did not have writing materials with which to participate in the study. The transportation and writing materials were included in the research expenses. The Galadima School had no power supply but relied on the solar panel provided by OLPC which at the time of my study was no longer functional. The XO laptop idea is a great one that could have impacted schools in developing countries had OLPC chose those particular schools with at least the basic necessities that could provide a fertile ground for implementation. Granted the popular narrative on African education are schools that lack basic educational needs, I must highlight that every African country irrespective of their economy and education system, have several schools albeit mostly private schools that are at par with elementary and secondary schools in the Western countries. There are various evidentiary proof that attest students from these schools compete at the global arena and in many instances, have surpassed schools in the western countries in the areas of science and technology. There are also mid-range schools that are not top-notch but can sustain projects like the XO laptop and similar initiatives. One can understand the compassion and sentiment of propelling the rural schools to rise to the level of mid-range and top-notch schools thus leveling the playing field for all, but when such investment has no strong foundation and source of sustenance, the initiative becomes an exercise in futility.

One other clarification I would like to proffer in this introductory chapter pertains to the critical evaluation of preference to digital technology only. Despite the critical review in this book, about the call for digital technology investment in all schools across the board, this volume echoes several studies that support educational transformation in digital age with mobile electronics and other emergent technologies. The pervasiveness of mobile electronic devices in the twenty-first century has permeated various facets of our society including teaching and learning. Initially, educational technology was prevalent among developed societies but is more and more transcending low-income communities of the developing world. For decades, numerous efforts have been made to improve education quality in developing regions of the globe—efforts by multilateral organizations such as the UNESCO, as well as individuals, companies, and governmental agencies. Often, some of these efforts overlook pertinent factors such as inclusion of local experts, provision of appropriate curriculum, meeting other needs of the targeted population such adequate learning environment (classrooms), qualified teachers, basic needs of food, pencils, textbooks and exercise books, cultural practices, overall cost of technology and financial sustenance, and many others. Such negligence rendered most of the educational technology projects unsustainable and in worse cases, unable to jumpstart the deployment.

Criticisms of the processes involved in educational technology adoption in low-income communities include:

Mere dumping of hardware or software in schools and hoping it will somehow work.

Promoting technologies designed for a particular region as a universal educational panacea.

Failure to equip the technology with appropriate content.

Failure to involve local experts in all stages of design, implementation, and adoption.

Overlooking the necessity of teacher training efforts before adoption and a continuous training afterwards.

Overlooking other basic yet pertinent needs of the user population; for instance, food, shelter, school supplies, textbooks, qualified teachers, etc.

Overlooking the overall cost and plan for financial sustenance.

Failure to identify specific goal(s) for which the technology is expected to serve.

In light of the above, this work adds to the volume of books on educational technology planning, designing, implementation, and evaluation specific to the African continent. However, there is still paucity of materials that focus on elementary education and technologies designed by the West and transferred to the Global South. Also, it addressed the issue of innovation as a process of transferring ideologies and not just the hardware and software technologies incorporating political and religious colonialism with its by-product of cultural imperialism.

Despite the frenzy of every African country jumping on the bandwagon of incorporating ICT in education at all levels without the exclusion of the rural regions who need the basic supplies of books, pencils, pens, chalkboard and desks, and a sanitary environment, it has not been established empirically that mere incorporation of technology in schools correlates with improved education performance barring all other variables. Another major topic that was addressed is the educational policy or lack thereof in many African countries. Often, such decisions and policies adopt a top-down approach as opposed to comprehensive involvement of all stakeholders. Furthermore, this book addresses the notion of presenting some educational technologies as panacea for all African problems. Such mentality that these educational technologies especially those transferred from Western countries promise something entirely different and better evokes a nostalgia of colonialism. The best practice would be to organically incorporate the new technology as complementary rather than replacing what has been. Also, this new frenzy of considering educational goal as predominantly preparing our students to compete in the global arena is often misconstrued and thus pushing several African countries to adopt other nations’ ideas, strategies, systems, and plans so as to effectively compete.

The confusion or misguidance may stem from semantics and the terminologies used. Instead of fixating on new technology, the term latest technology could be a better alternative. Latest is subjective and not universal. It curbs that universality of new—latest for some may be digital technology while for others, it is still analog.

Several questions persist, why is Africa so bent on incorporating universally, digital ICT in all schools even when such has proved attainable only to a small fraction of schools? Why is affinity to westernization the only measure of an effective pedagogy? Myriads of studies show numerous challenges that impede effective ICT adoption and implementation of ICT in all schools. Instead of infusing such importance to a solution that is inaccessible, why not re-strategize and find more effective ways of improving education for low-income communities. Several studies provide oppositional results; some attest to ICT as improving education while others show results that are contrary—it all depends on which form of ICT and other extenuating variables ranging from what constitutes the expected contribution, to the method of implementation, teacher involvement with design and curriculum, actual information in the said ICT product and many more factors. Joyce-Gibbons et al.s’ (2018) study on the educational improvement through the use of mobile phones found that it serves as a distraction rather than an effective tool; while Asongu and Odhiambo’s (2019) study found otherwise. They assert, contrary to the findings of Joyce-Gibbons et al. (2018), ICT improves education quality in Sub-Saharan Africa and teachers should start considering its relevance in both elementary and secondary school levels.

Perhaps another important contribution of this work is the incorporation of critical-cultural evaluation of educational technology in Sub-Saharan Africa. Several works have reviewed educational technology adoption in Africa from the economic, socio-economic, gender, cost, teacher training, pedagogical style, technical requirements, and even the economy of education. This particular work chose to review educational technology design and adoption from a critical-cultural lens touching upon the above-mentioned constructs but focusing on embedding the African traditional education system, juxtaposing the African culture and introducing the new technology only in a situation where these two major identities of an African society has been fully considered. Another factor that sets this work apart is that it focuses primarily on educational technology, design, implementation, and evaluation at the primary education level as this level is crucial in setting the foundation and pace for every child as he or she engages in other higher educational pursuits. Additionally, this rudimentary level is similar to the Precolonial African Traditional Education System and the focus of the pedagogy is more attuned to the environment in question. Tertiary institutions on the other hand, create spaces for more exploration in terms of preparing students to compete in a global world. Situating and grounding every child in their culture at the primary level provides that child with a solid background of who he or she really is and equips the child with a unique experience that defines the background, the pride, the understanding, and the framework upon which every other forms of education can be built and could yield the expected outcome.

Often, nation states and individual schools misinterpret global promulgations or suggestive policies such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically the fourth one (SDG4) which focuses on quality education, by ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all, the goals are relative and ought to be interpreted differently and accordingly. In 2015 all United Nations Member States adopted a 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. A 2019 review of the SDG goals indicates that Goal 4 has been majorly under-achieved especially among the developing nations especially in the areas of teacher training and access to quality education and basic infrastructure (United Nations, 2019). For instance, the report indicates many developing countries still lack basic infrastructure and facilities to provide effective learning environments. Sub-Saharan Africa faces the biggest challenges: at the primary and lower secondary levels, less than half of schools have access to electricity, the Internet, computers and basic drinking water. Also, Globally, there has been little progress in the percentage of primary school teachers who are trained: it has been stagnating at about 85 per cent since 2015. The proportion is lowest in sub-Saharan Africa (64 per cent). And finally, In 2015, an estimated 617 million children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age worldwide – more than 50 per cent – were not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. Of these, about two thirds were attending school but were not learning in the classroom, or dropped out school.¹ https://​sustainabledevel​opment.​un.​org/​sdg4.

Even though this book is not proposing a precolonial system of education in Africa in the twenty-first century, it however proposes a re-evaluation of the major goals of education at the elementary and secondary levels considering that many African youth do not extend their formal education beyond this level. How then can elementary and/or secondary education function to prepare the percentile of African youth who may not necessarily proceed to secondary or tertiary institutions for the society?

While the brunt of this work encompasses Sub-Saharan Africa, it is not aimed to demonstrate a monolithic perspective. Africa no doubt is a diverse continent; therefore, all suggestions in this book serves as a template that can be adapted and adopted to fit each environment. This work focuses mainly on those educational technologies that are designed and transferred from the West to the Global South and reviews as cases, the initiatives that are adopted or deployed to several African countries for a comparative analysis. It also focuses on the initiatives that multilateral organizations propose for educational improvement in regions where the designers of the technology and non-natives. It will focus majorly on the author’s research on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT, United States that is geared toward improving elementary education among low-income communities of the world.

Several themes resound throughout the book:

Technology has always been an integral component of education—from slate and chalk, to blackboard and books; and to electronic machineries like computers and other handheld tablets. Each of these developmental tools that aid education has specific ways that both students and teachers could possibly enhance and harness their usefulness. Even the rudimentary slate and chalk had their challenges and disadvantages—they lack archival quality thus, storage