Impact Of Internet Accessibility And Instructor’s Computer Literacy On E-Education In Urban And Rural Public Vocational Colleges In Kenya

Research Article
Mutuli Kevin and Jay Rajasekera
DOI: 
http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijrsr.2019.1007.3651
Subject: 
science
KeyWords: 
Kenya, ICT, Internet accessibility, e-education, digital divid
Abstract: 

Internet has spread around the world tremendously. Yet, Africa as a whole still lagsbehind in terms of accessibility and usage.With more than 54 nations, Africa has a mixed matrix of both developed as well as very inefficient internet infrastructure. Among sizable Internet adoptability is Kenya, a country with more than 31 million users, according to 2017 data; it leadsentire Africa with Internet penetration rate of more than 66% of the population. According to public data most of the internet growth in Kenya took place since the year of 2010, which saw internet penetration grow from 14% of the population to 65% at in 2016, almost a five-fold increase. This paper looks at the impact of Internet accessibility in Kenya with regards to e-education. In order to evaluate the situation after this fast-paced growth a survey was conducted among 464 instructors from public vocational colleges, which were selected because IT is a mandatory subject in such colleges in Kenya. The survey results show that the mode of Internet accessibility and the level of service quality, with regards to e-education, are quite different in urban colleges when compared torural colleges. Besides, the level of computer literacy of instructors differs vastly between the urban and rural area vocational colleges. When surveyed data was analyzed quantitatively, results indicate that the general readiness of e-education depends significantly on the quality of Internet accessibility and on computer literacy of instructors. It is concluded that while Kenya displays overall leadership in Africa in term of Internet accessibility, the support infrastructure needed for e-education, in terms of quality of access and quality of trained instructors, still does not measure up to the expected levels.