Use of Technology in Open and Distance Education for Learning Among the Disenfranchised People in Africa: Challenges and Recommendations for Its Actualisation

Abstract

In line with the provisions of the Science Technology and Innovation Strategy (STISA) 2024, an initiative aimed at accelerating Africa’s transition to an innovation - led Knowledge - based Economy, adopting the Open and Distance Education (ODE) as a means to transmitting knowledge through technology to the disenfranchised population in Africa is undoubtedly one of the best options of ensuring that this group have the opportunity to be educated regardless of circumstance, distance or the lack of financial resources. This group includes those displaced by war, inmates, women in the purdah, and housemaids burdened with domestic chores. This paper, therefore, focused on how to use relevant technology in ODE for pedagogy and andragogy among the disenfranchised population in Africa to foreground how technology can be deployed to bridge the knowledge transmission gap for the population. This is germane in the light of the spate of internal violence and other factors that predispose displacement; thus, catalysing sudden migration, which prevents their getting access to education. The objectives are to identify relevant technology facilities that ODE-centred institutions in Africa can deploy in facilitating learning for the displaced; to foreground their relevance in the sustainability schema; and to categorise the modes and methods of ensuring that learning is actualised for them. To this end, the challenges militating the provision of education for the displaced population were discussed along with recommendations so that the population may be included in the scheme of affairs in the African continent to create a pathway for the realisation of the AU Agenda 2063 and the SDG 4.