Instilling eLearning culture towards recipients of a rurally disadvantaged institution of higher learning

Abstract

This paper explores how eLearning culture can be meaningfully instilled as an empowerment approach towards improved learning for an underprivileged rural institution. A qualitative study embedded in a case study design was undertaken. To collect data, semi-structured interviews were administered to three purposefully nominated participants. These were university teachers who rendered their teaching services in a university located within a rural community in one of the Eastern Cape Education Districts. The findings of this inquiry revealed that (i) quality teaching and learning, (ii) lack of eLearning resources and infrastructure, intertwined with (iii) attitudinal behavior from both teachers and learners, were results of inefficiency towards online learning. The study concludes with recommendations that there is an urgent need to invent motivation strategies as no single individual had ever anticipated the emergent turnaround in the entire universe, where all institutions of higher learning were forced to embark on online learning, disregarding diverseness and rurality of learner-teacher constituencies thereof, as recipients in the schooling environments.