e-Learning in Libya and Tunisia (Research Paper Sample)

 
Factors Influencing Faculty Members in Adopting e- Learning in Libya and Tunisia.
Student’s Name:
Institution Affiliation:
 
Factors Influencing Faculty Members towards Adopting e- Learning in Libya and Tunisia.
        With the rise in use and development of the internet and related technologies, many individuals and institutions have embraced the technology which has created new opportunities and made it possible to reap great educational benefits. Advances in information technology have brought a great revolution to the education sector with many institutions incorporating the e-learning platforms in their curriculum. Ideally, e-learning can be viewed as an innovative approach designed to ease delivery of learning and transfer of skills, knowledge, or other educational benefits to the learners through the use of electronic media tailored to transfer information in electronic form. E-learning involves various stakeholders including the faculties in various institutions, learners, and both the technical and administrative staff in an institution as well as other players like the government and internet service providers.  
            Adoption of E-learning has proved to be very beneficial and convenient and many stakeholders have praised the returns realized from the platforms. The various faculties in institutions of higher learning have been able to consistently deliver content, maintain track of the leaning process as well as cut on operational costs courtesy of e-learning initiatives. Moreover, e-learning has increased accessibility to crucial information, enabled availability of information on demand, and facilitated better content delivery as well as greatly cutting the training, travel, labor and other education related costs. Despite the many benefits associated with e-learning, many countries still lag behind and have not yet fully embraced the technology. This may be explained partly due to the fact that e-learning inventiveness requires extensive investments which may slow down some countries from laying down appropriate infrastructure to support the technology. Additionally, some countries that have experienced crises in the past including Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, which have been selected for this research work, display various other key factors that influence faculty members towards adopting e- learning options. These factors are worth investigating and they form the bulk of this research work.    
The Research Context
            The aim of this research work is to evaluate and develop a Learning Readiness Assessment Model for countries in North African region that have experienced several forms of crises in the past. The countries in this region have experienced the Arab Spring in the past. These countries including Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia have greatly desired to elevate their educational and curriculum standards through use of several e-learning platforms so as to keep in pace with the digital development experienced in other parts of the world. However, implementing various e-Learning solutions in countries in crises has, often turned out to be a daunting task [2]. Various factors including differences in geographical and economic conditions, divergent educational backgrounds and pedagogical views, language and content issues, usability and technical literacy issues, attitudes and prejudices, and even differences in climate have posed great challenges to initiatives aimed at the introduction of technology-enhanced education [3]. As a result, it is imperative to emphasise that the current research is focused on the North African region of the developing world; in particular countries where the Arab spring has taken place and are going through a transition process from dictatorship to democracy form of self-governance.
            The three countries; Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia are perfect representatives of the developing, North African region and are characterised as developing countries that have not achieved a significant degree of industrialization relative to their populations. Additionally, the three countries have, in most cases, a medium to low standard of living [4]. The region that the three countries cover shares common challenges with the developing world including high unemployment, low female labour force participation rates, low levels of private sector development, weak public and corporate governance, bloated public sectors, limited competition, and pervasive corruption. On the other hand, the region shares a common goal in comparison with the developing world; that is, there is a wide consensus on the potential of ICTs to promote economic growth, fight poverty, and integrate the developing countries into the global economy [5].
            This research will in particular pay special focus on El-Zawia University in Libya. The El-Zawia University is chosen because it is a good ‘test case’ for the following reasons: (1) I am employed as an assistant lecturer and sponsored by El-Zawia University for this research; (2) El-Zawia University is the 3rd largest university (student population and number of faculties) out of a total six public universities in Libya.(3) El-Zawia University covers a very large area in the west of Libya; a characteristic shared by other universities as well, to educate as many student as possible; and, (4) More importantly, it is normal in Libyan universities, including El-Zawia University, to have more than two of the same faculty due to the increased student population.
            Libya best qualifies as a ‘test case’ and is thus chosen because it represents the region well. Firstly, Libya plays a chief role within the African landmass, on both occupational and educational level, by stimulating and supporting main creativities and plans, comprising of those in the adjacent states of Egypt, Tunisia, Sudan, Chad, Niger and Mali. Secondly, Libya share shared identity creation features such as Islam as the chief belief and Arabic as a shared language [6]. Thirdly, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia are now all engaged in far-reaching political and democratic reform. These countries have lifted bans on political parties and groups, have eased restrictions on political competition, and are preparing the formation of constituent assemblies to elaborate new constitutions. They have defined milestones for political and democratic change and have received significant pledges of support from the international community, both economically and politically. Finally, Libya is a good ‘test case’ for the investigation of faculty readiness for e-Learning, because it is small enough to survey effectively, while being representative of many parts of North Africa – thus providing some degree of confidence that results obtained here can be replicated elsewhere.
The Research Overview                                                                                              
            The Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries face unique challenges compared to developed countries. For this, e-Learning has been proposed as a solution to a variety of educational problems, such as shortage of teachers, lack of quality learning materials, inclusion of part-time students and adult education students, and long geographical distances [7]. Further, E-learning can compensate the weakness of their traditional education methods and enables higher-education instructors to transfer their knowledge for a relatively large number of students without limitation of space, time or facilities [8, 9]. However, unlike in the United States, colleges and universities in developing countries have lagged behind in eLearning adoption mainly due to high cost and poor internet infrastructure [10]. In particular, the North African region has been a late follower when it comes to the adoption of e-Learning. This can be greatly attributed to the delay in the adoption of the Internet as a whole by most governments of the region. In view of this, still a growing number of tertiary institutions and universities have been enhancing their programmes with e-Learning systems [11]. However, the potential benefits of e-Learning as aid to teaching and learning may not be fully achieved as a result of poor adoption by users [11, 12], and "without the real user acceptance, the implementation of the new technology will be difficult" [12].
In light of this, it is therefore imperative that before adopting e-Learning, HEIs addresses the stakeholder’s views. This is crucial as they play an important role in curricular transformations, integrating e-Learning technologies and adapti...