An Analysis of Academia Perceptions of Effects of Mainstreaming E-learning on Gender/Socio-Cultural Minorities in Zimbabwean Universities

Abstract

The cumulative advances and innovations in digital technologies, coupled with the evidence that learners entering tertiary education today have changed fundamentally in their learning needs/styles have awakened us to the realities of new learning landscapes which are emerging around us [1]. E-learning system promises a new way of delivering education. However, the need to ensure e-learning system success becomes imperative. After 65% of the students failed to voluntarily register for an e-learning blended programme, in three universities, this research set out to find the challenges of mainstreaming e-learning in the Zimbabwean context. This was a survey of a purposive sample of 60 students and 54 university lecturers from three universities who are part-time tutors of the Zimbabwe Open University. The study found out that the divisive vectors of race and inequality appear to re-emerge via technology which is at best stagnating and at worst putting gender/socio-cultural minorities at the margins owing to the dilapidated infrastructure, the digital divide that characterize students in the universities under study, lack of teacher competencies and challenges of accessing electronic materials. In such instance, e-learning was seen as the monster under the bed and technology adoption acceptance is grossly affected. The study argues that historical, technological, social, political and economic challenges appeared to be inextricably linked and appear in a different form. Thus, the research recommend the need to enable the technological possibility for students to be masters of their own destiny by changing the way they live, work, organise, communicate and interact.