South Africa’s (Unequal) Digital Learning Journey: A Critical Review

Abstract

This chapter is an attempt at a critical review of South Africa’s digital learning (DL) journey since the dawn of democracy in 1994. It reviews DL policy, practice and scholarship based on six themes: DL policy, DL infrastructure, digital integration in learning and teaching, digital skills and competencies of learners and teacher professional development. It combines Feenberg’s critical theoretical approach to technology with Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as analytical framework. It uses a social justice and equity lens to review three national government policies related to digital learning: the eEducation White Paper, the White Paper on Post-School Education and Training and the National Integrated ICT Policy White Paper. Four key tensions in the digital learning activity system are highlighted: between rules and subject, subject and object, subject and mediational tools and subject and division of labour. It concludes with the need for more critical research, conversations and interventions that challenge predominant globalization narratives and calls for a more concerted social justice research agenda that engages with current debates on decolonizing education in South Africa.