Technology and Innovation in the Global South: Effective Literacy Programme for the Poor

Technology and Innovation in the Global South: Effective Literacy Programme for the Poor

Obadiah Moyo, Sibonokuhle Ndlovu
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4867-7.ch013
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Abstract

This chapter addresses the problem of literacy and technology for rural impoverished and deprived children in Zimbabwe. While technological innovation is understood as the Western concept, too far-fetched for poor countries in the Global South, this chapter argues that poor disadvantaged countries have their own innovation and technology that befits its context and needs. Decolonial theory is used to analyse a unique programme that has been able to improve literacy and technology levels of rural and impoverished children of Zimbabwe. The finding is that despite remoteness and poverty, a unique kind of innovation and technology is possible to enhance literacy in disadvantaged contexts in the Global South when the locally available resources are mobilised in a scientific way. The chapter hopes to help the understanding that advanced technological innovation is not only a Western concept, but also the South.
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Decolonial Theory As Framework

The chapter uses Decolonial Theory to analyse a special programme that has been designed, developed and is being implemented to address literacy deprivation in the context of extremely impoverished areas, affecting rural Zimbabwean children. This is very important to demonstrate that Africa in general, and Africans, have intellectual resources which could help them tap into the locally available resources. They could effectively and uniquely utilise these resources to meet the needs of their people. This could be seen as a way of dismantling repressive ideologies of the West, which coloniality imposed on Africa and Africans.

Selected tools, which are specific theoretical concepts of Decolonial Theory, have been used to illuminate and give meaning to the Rural Libraries and Resources Development Programme. The authors want to provide a deeper understanding of the programme than what might be seen at the surface level. The concepts of coloniality of being, coloniality of knowledge, coloniality of power, and decoloniality are examined since they helped the authors to explore and explain the specific programme under study.

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