Dominant discourses informing e-learning policies in Higher Education Institutions in South Africa

Abstract

Over the past two decades, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa (SA) have formulated various e-learning policies. E-learning policies are neither neutral nor value free as they reflect policy makers’ ideas about the role of technology in teaching and learning. Although several e-learning policies have been developed in SA, few studies have examined the discourses that underpin them nor the implications they have on teaching and learning. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as its methodology and Feenberg’s typology of e-learning discourses as its framework, the study analysed the dominant discourses that underpin e-learning policies in HEIs in SA. The study’s findings show the dominance of deterministic and instrumentalist discourses in the e-learning policies. These discourses conceptualise technology as autonomous and value neutral. They also view technology as a magic wand that will solve all educational problems while fostering progress, effectiveness, and efficiency. Critical discourses on e-learning are largely marginalised in the policies. The paper contends that the dominant discourses in the e-learning policies analysed offer narrow technological fixes to nuanced educational problems in SA. They promote pedagogically poor applications of technology that perpetuate transmission models of education. These findings indicate the need to embed critical discourses in e-learning policies.