Barriers to the implementation of electronic textbooks in rural and township schools in South Africa

Abstract

The use of information and communications technology (ICT) is gradually increasing in South African schools. In the Gauteng province, the Department of Education has prioritised the provisioning of electronic textbooks (ebooks) to public schools since 2014. However, to this day, there seem to be multiple barriers that hamper the adoption and use of digital technologies, and specifically ebooks. This study was premised on the technology acceptance model, and a mixed-method approach was used with an online questionnaire and a semi-structured interview protocol as the data collection instruments. For the qualitative data, thematic analysis was used to identify themes and patterns. For the quantitative data, descriptive statistics, such as frequencies and percentages, and inferential statistics, such as the two-proportions z-test and the chi-square test of independence, were utilised. Results indicated that although portable electronic devices that facilitate the reading of ebooks are readily available at public schools in Gauteng, the availability and use of ebooks are still very limited. The results also show that the participants found digital resources easy to use and easy to navigate and indicated that teachers would like to have more training to fully develop the necessary skills required to implement the ebooks effectively. Teachers do not seem to have adequate time to prepare teaching materials and learning activities using these ebooks. In this article, the barriers to the successful implementation of ebooks are explored, and the article culminates in putting forward some guidelines to create an enabling environment to support the successful adoption of ebooks in schools.