The Challenges of E-learning in South Africa

The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest open distance e-learning (ODeL) university in the continent of Africa, with a student headcount more than 300,000. Over two decades after the transition from apartheid to democracy, vast inequalities across race, class, gender and socio-economic status persist in South Africa, with the majority of the African people being the most affected. Demographically, the African people constitute about 80.8% of the country’s total population, compared to whites, who constitute a mea- gre 8.8%, yet African households carry the highest burden of poverty, living way below the official poverty line of $1.90/day as determined by the World Bank and other international agencies. This chapter explores these inequalities and ponders on the role of e-learning for this poorest section of society in a country where modern technological devises in the form of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and access to the Internet are perceived to be ubiquitous. South Africa’s Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) commits to “an expansion of open and distance education and the establishment of more ‘satellite’ premises where universities or colleges provide classes at places and times convenient to students (including in rural areas)”. This chapter also explores the role of UNISA in the provision of distance learning through structured and sustainable e-learning . One method of increasing student teacher (two way) communication is through interactive satellite classes (real time verbal communication), which have the capacity to re-humanize distance education and are more accessible to the majority of UNISA students who are far removed from the major cities.