Informing sustainable development in education: Identification and actualization of layered IS affordances

This paper reports from a qualitative case study in the Gambian education sector. The study applies an affordance perspective to the ongoing strengthening of the national education management information system. Our analysis distinguishes between micro-level technology-use affordances (e.g., civil servants using IT for data capture and reporting), meso-level information system (IS) affordances (e.g., data-driven decision making at the organizational level), and macro-level affordances, which include policy interventions to ensure the attainment of education sector goals. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, the paper introduces a stepwise framework for IS affordance identification in terms of granularity levels (micro, meso and macro). Second, the paper outlines how use of IT at the micro-level allows for the actualization of meso-level IS affordances, which in turn serve as a foundation for the articulation of higher-level interventions. Far too often, ICT for development (ICT4D) projects focus on putting technology in the hands of users with the assumption that “better data” will drive development. The significant work involved in identifying and actualizing meso-level IS affordances is often not explicated and recognized in related plans and budgets. By highlighting meso-level IS affordance actualizations, the paper explicates the link between public sector IT adoption and use and intended societal-level impact, which remains a key policy and research concern.