Challenges in the implementation of E-Learning in Afghanistan Higher Education

Abstract

e-learning is a cost-effective, free of time, and space restriction manner that is available anytime, and anywhere, which is the more crucial approach of learning for the people who have an occupation and are faced with time and financial constraints, to improve their skills and qualifications. However, many barriers hinder the successful implementation of e-learning. The study of such obstacles will assist policymakers to ease the challenges and pave the way for the successful implementation of e-learning. The current study seeks barriers that hinder the implementation of e-learning in Afghanistan Higher Education. At first, the study reviews the literature and found fifteen main barriers of e-learning, in the meanwhile two other barriers were added to these fifteen barriers during the bibliography. Then the study grouped these seventeen barriers into four dimensions namely: lecturers, students, infrastructure and technology, and university management. A structured questionnaire-based survey is applied to 783 audiences (lecturers and students) of five public, and five private universities in the five provinces of Afghanistan. And of these, 670 questionnaires are returned and analyzed. Based on the objective analysis, it was found that the level of ICT knowledge of lecturers and students is between beginner and expert. Furthermore, over 3/4 quarter of them did not have access to ICT and e-learning tools at their universities. Moreover, the result shows that all these seventeen items were known as the main barriers of e-learning implementation in Higher Education, except one item which is “Lack of ICT expertise”.