The impact of information and communication technology in education: Gender issues

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is recognised as a vehicle to improve the lives of people in marginalized communities of South Africa. In the past few years, ICT plays an important role in the educational sector in South Africa more especial in the urban areas of the country. ICT enables access to information and new forms of communication and provides many online services (e.g. facebook, email) in the sphere of commerce, culture, entertainment, socio-economic development and education. While it is well established that ICT use in education has different impacts in gender (boys and girls), there is still a lack of research on ICT use, ICT experience and attitudes towards ICT use particularly in rural areas of South Africa. Most research from the literature review shows that research was conducted in developed countries where access in computers is not a major issue. ICT use and access, however, is growing rapidly in both primary and secondary education. This paper aim to investigate different impacts of ICTs on gender issues in marginalized rural schools of South Africa. The paper will draws primarily on literature from ICT experience, ICT access, attitudes towards ICT. Preliminary reviews of literature indicate that while boys and girls both tend to use ICTs for school homework or social networking, they take on different tasks differently when working together.