An assessment of ICT challenges in rural areas: ICT experts vs rural users views

Abstract

Research shows that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can make a significant contribution to economic growth and social development of communities. However, in rural areas there are challenges that appear to slow down the progress and the realisation of the impact of ICTs. These ICT challenges include poor infrastructure, technological illiteracy, high costs of ICTs etc. An assessment of ICT challenges within rural areas was done. A composite methodological approach was employed in this study. This involved the use of qualitative research techniques such as participant observation, workshops, focus groups and individual interviews supported by document analysis. The Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa was used as the case study. The paper aims to identify an association between the ICT challenges based on rural ICT users and ICT experts. Two study groups were selected i.e. rural users within SLL, ICT experts in Europe and Africa, government officials and academic institutions were engaged to understand the current ICT challenges in rural areas. Each of the study groups had 50 participants. Chi-square tests were used to test the level of association between each of the challenges.Results show that there are variations in identifying current ICT challenges between SLL rural users and ICT experts. ICT experts mentioned poor ICT infrastructure as the main challenge while this was not what SLL rural users thought. Rather, the SLL community pointed technological illiteracy as the main challenge. The paper aims to show the degree on how each of the ICT challenge was viewed by each of the study groups.