Vusumuzi Maphosa

By Vusumuzi Maphosa and Mfowabo Maphosa

MOOCs are one of the most transformative tools of the 21st century offering scalable affordances such as increased access to quality education and providing new learning opportunities to communities previously disadvantaged by location and time. The outbreak of COVID-19 has magnified the need for remote-based teaching to minimise learning disruptions. Although developed countries have adopted MOOCs as a novel tool for technology-enhanced education, Africa still lags in adopting such platforms. Literature indexed by two databases, the Web of Science and Scopus, was used for a systematic literature review to evaluate research themes on African countries’ opportunities and challenges when adopting MOOCs. The eight-step methodology selected 36 articles published between 2013 and 2021. Results indicate that a few African countries are researching MOOCs. Opportunities for MOOC adoption in Africa are repurposing MOOCs, democratising access to higher education, professional development of teachers, transitions in the workplace and using algorithms to enhance learning. The challenges faced include access to the Internet and educational equipment, lack of skills, pedagogical barriers and MOOCs as a preserve of the Global North. MOOCs provide the potential for universal access to education if African governments could enact policies that support development, adoption and growth.

Part of the book: Massive Open Online Courses - Current Practice and Future Trends

By Vusumuzi Maphosa and Mfowabo Maphosa

The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments, industry, and educational institutions to deploy digital platforms to minimise disruptions in daily life. Institutions that had adopted Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) tools minimised learning disruptions by quickly migrating to the online environment. 4IR tools include artificial intelligence, virtual reality, robotics, intelligent tutoring and natural language processing systems. Although migrating to the online environment was challenging for most developing countries, COVID-19 offered a rare opportunity to leapfrog into a new digital trajectory. Our study considers COVID-19’s effects on education and the ethical issues arising from adopting 4IR tools and pays particular attention to the impact of ChatGPT. The results show unprecedented and accelerated adoption of 4IR tools during COVID-19 in developed countries while developing countries struggled. We highlight 4IR affordances, constraints and ethical issues. Affordances include independent learning, chatbots, virtual reality and intelligent tutoring systems. Concerns include bias, academic cheating, surveillance, data privacy, and unavailability of policies. 4IR development is private-sector-led; educational institutions and governments need to formulate policies that safeguard the integrity of education. We highlight future scope and opportunities for 4IR tools in education, current limitations and future research trends. We propose a research agenda which evaluates the impact of ChatGPT on education.

Part of the book: Reimagining Education

By Vusumuzi Maphosa and Pfano Mashau

The amount of discarded electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), popularly known as e-waste, is rising alarmingly and drawing immediate attention from stakeholders. Governments in emerging economies support importing second-hand EEE to bridge the digital divide and allow communities to access the information superhighway. E-waste contains toxic elements deleterious to the environment and human health. Simultaneously, e-waste contains rare earth minerals that generate USD65 billion in revenue annually through recycling. Urban mining is reclaiming minerals from anthropogenic materials, reducing the extraction of virgin minerals facing depletion and with some sourced from unstable regions and conflict zones. The unidirectional flow of e-waste into Africa from the developed world is viewed as the re-colonisation and the carbonisation divide. Due to a lack of appropriate infrastructure and policies and low knowledge levels in developing countries, the management of e-waste is left to the informal sector, which uses rudimentary tools to extract rare earth metals. This chapter highlights the contentious definition of e-waste, its movement from the Global North, and its epidemiological and environmental impact. It advocates for setting policies and infrastructure to turn landfills and dumpsites into urban mines. This chapter also recommends that developing countries monitor the state of EEE imports and transform informal to formal recycling supported by coordinated collection and storage centres.

Part of the book: Advances and Challenges in Hazardous Waste Management