A Qualitative Analysis of an E-education Initiative in Deep Rural Schools in South Africa: A Need to Build Resilience

Abstract

The Information Communication and Technology for Rural Education Development (ICT4RED) initiative in South Africa which was aimed at the introduction of ICTs into schools in disadvantaged communities, was coordinated by a government agency (the Meraka Institute). The initiative was supported by a number of government stakeholders, namely the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Basic Education, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, and the Provincial Department of Education. Often, ICT4E projects fail once the implementation team and the funder withdraw, especially in rural schools where the only technological resources available at the school are those provided through the project or intervention. Although there are multiple reasons for this, the problem often lies with integration of the project into the day-to-day institutional arrangements of the education system. This puts pressure on the school environment, especially the teacher – who often receives little support from the District and Provincial departments. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven teachers from five project schools that were selected for an evaluation at the time, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Findings on the paper were generated by way of content analysis. The content of the interviews was finally analysed with Heeks’s Resilience Assessment Benchmarking and Impact Toolkit (RABIT). The research showed that these schools are unable to sustain the change introduced, without support from their formal support system; therefore, this indicates that schools are required to be more resilient, in order to develop capacity to absorb the intervention, and to successfully implement it at the school level.