**1. Introduction**

The University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest open distance *e-learning* (ODeL) institution in the continent of Africa, with a massive student headcount more than 300,000 [1–4]. According to UNISA [5], in 2011, 91% of its students were South Africans, 6.6% came from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, 1.3% came from the other African countries, 0.5% came from the rest of the world, while there was no information about the

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

outstanding 0.1%. UNISA has been described as a *mega* university, and the only dedicated distance education provider in the African continent [3, 6–10]. Van Broekhuizen [11] argued that UNISA is South Africa's foremost distance learning institution that accounts for roughly half of all enrolments in the initial teacher education programmes. He noted that, by 2013, UNISA accounted for 36% of South Africa's higher education enrolments. To that end, it is his contention that "trends in South African HE enrolments and graduations will, to a large extent, be a reflection of the underlying trends in enrolments and graduations at UNISA" ([11], p. 18).

This chapter is divided into four sections. First, we sketch South Africa's political landscape, which is marked by instability, uncertainty and unpredictability. These features are a causal effect of the country's ailing and shrinking economy. South Africa's economic growth rate is estimated at a dismal 0.7%, while unemployment is rising. Second, we touch on UNISA as a *mega* university given its size, and the aggregated resources and capacities at its disposal. During the period 2013–2016, UNISA's student headcount enrolments were more than 300,000, drawn from South Africa, the rest of the African continent and worldwide. Third, we explore UNISA's role in the delivery of distance learning through *e-learning*. We differentiate between distance learning and *e-learning*. While we take distance learning to refer to an aggregate of methods for teaching diverse students that are located at different places and therefore physically separated from the learning institution, lecturers and fellow students, we take *e-learning* to refer to "the delivery of content via all electronic media, including the Internet, intranets, extranets, satellite broadcast, audio/video tape, interactive TV and CD-ROM" [19]. In the fourth and final sections, we offer some concluding remarks.

The Challenges of *E-learning* in South Africa http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.74843 123

South Africa's political landscape is uncertain, unstable and unpredictable. The president of the country is embroiled in scandals and faces 783 charges of corruption [20]. As a result, the country's economy is in a state of disarray and shrinking. In his maiden mid-term budget speech, finance minister Malusi Gigaba proposed a downward revision of the country's economic growth from 1.3 to 0.7% for 2017. He estimated the deficit at 4.7%, and projected the country's economic growth "to increase slowly reaching 1.9 per cent in 2020" ([21], p. 15). It is therefore no wonder that South Africa's adult unemployment rates, especially among the African people, who were previously excluded from socio-economic opportunities and privileges, were at a

**Figure 1.** South Africa's unemployment rates. Source: Statistics South Africa [22, 23]. *Quarterly Labour Force Survey.*

**2. South Africa's political landscape**

record high of 27.7% in 2017 (see **Figure 1**).

In this chapter, we explore UNISA's provision of distance education through *e-learning* in a country that is marked by vast socio-economic inequalities and extreme levels of poverty. We shall differentiate between distance education and *e-learning* [12]. On the one hand, "distance education" is "a set of methods or processes for teaching a diverse range of students located at different places and physically separated from the learning institution, their tutors/teachers as well as other students" ([13], p. 1). On the other hand, *e-learning* "encompasses any form of telecommunications and computer-based learning" ([14], p. 8). We ponder on the potential empowering role of *e-learning*, especially for the poorest of the poor African people who were previously excluded from opportunities by apartheid policies and legislation. South Africa's Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) [15] is committed to "an expansion of open and distance education and the establishment of more 'satellite' premises where universities or colleges provide classes at places and times convenient to students (including in rural areas)". The reason for this is that just over two decades after the transition from apartheid to democracy, South Africa remains a vastly unequal society, by race, class, gender and socioeconomic status. The country's Gini coefficient1 is estimated to be approximately 0.65 based on expenditure data (per capita excluding taxes) and 0.69 based on income data [17]. The previously privileged white minority populations continue to enjoy living standards comparable to those of the *First World*, while the previously marginalised majority of the African people continue to live in abject poverty, way below the official poverty line as determined by the World Bank and other international agencies. Drawing on Sir Benjamin Disraeli's 1845 novel *Sybil, or Two Nations*, Mbeki [18] described South Africa as "Two Nations".

*We therefore make bold to say that South Africa is a country of two nations. One of these nations is white, relatively prosperous, regardless of gender or geographic dispersal. It has ready access to a developed economy, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure. This enables it to argue that, except for the persistence of gender discrimination against women; all members of this nation have the possibility to exercise their right to equal opportunity, the development opportunities to which the constitution of 1993 committed our country.*

*The second and larger nation of South Africa is black and poor, with the worst affected being women in the rural areas, the black rural population in general and the disabled. This nation lives under conditions of a grossly underdeveloped economic, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure. It has virtually no possibility to exercise what in reality amounts to a theoretical right to equal opportunity, with that right being equal within this black nation only to the extent that it is equally incapable of realisation.*

<sup>1</sup> The Gini coefficient or index is a prominent measure of income inequality. It leverages a scale of 0–1 to derive deviation from perfect income equality. A Gini index of 0 would imply perfect income equality, while an index of 1 would imply complete income disparity (see [16]).

This chapter is divided into four sections. First, we sketch South Africa's political landscape, which is marked by instability, uncertainty and unpredictability. These features are a causal effect of the country's ailing and shrinking economy. South Africa's economic growth rate is estimated at a dismal 0.7%, while unemployment is rising. Second, we touch on UNISA as a *mega* university given its size, and the aggregated resources and capacities at its disposal. During the period 2013–2016, UNISA's student headcount enrolments were more than 300,000, drawn from South Africa, the rest of the African continent and worldwide. Third, we explore UNISA's role in the delivery of distance learning through *e-learning*. We differentiate between distance learning and *e-learning*. While we take distance learning to refer to an aggregate of methods for teaching diverse students that are located at different places and therefore physically separated from the learning institution, lecturers and fellow students, we take *e-learning* to refer to "the delivery of content via all electronic media, including the Internet, intranets, extranets, satellite broadcast, audio/video tape, interactive TV and CD-ROM" [19]. In the fourth and final sections, we offer some concluding remarks.
