TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of information and communication technologies and access to electricity on education in Africa
AU - Elom, Chinyere Ori
AU - Onyeneke, Robert Ugochukwu
AU - Ayerakwa, Hayford Mensah
AU - Atta-Ankomah, Richmond
AU - Deffor, Eric Worlanyo
AU - Uwaleke, Chidebe Chijioke
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.
PY - 2024/8
Y1 - 2024/8
N2 - Access to quality education for all children is important for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals especially in Africa. However, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and access to electricity have continued to be burning issues hindering access to quality education in Africa. However, empirical evidence on the impact of ICTs and access to electricity on primary education in Africa is rare. This paper, therefore, investigates the impacts of information and communication technologies and access to electricity on the education of children in Africa. The study used rich data on primary school enrolment, education expenditure, access to electricity, fixed broadband subscriptions, fixed telephone subscriptions, mobile cellular subscriptions, and individuals using the internet in Africa obtained from the World Development Indicators. Leveraging on panel autoregressive distributed lag model, we find that fixed broadband subscriptions, mobile cellular subscriptions, individuals using the internet, and access to electricity exert significant impacts on school enrolment in Africa. We find from the Granger causality test result a unidirectional causality between school enrolment and mobile phone subscription. Furthermore, we identified bidirectional causalities between school enrolment and access to electricity, education expenditure, fixed telephone subscriptions, fixed broadband subscriptions, and individuals using the internet. We conclude that information and communication technologies improve education in Africa.
AB - Access to quality education for all children is important for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals especially in Africa. However, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and access to electricity have continued to be burning issues hindering access to quality education in Africa. However, empirical evidence on the impact of ICTs and access to electricity on primary education in Africa is rare. This paper, therefore, investigates the impacts of information and communication technologies and access to electricity on the education of children in Africa. The study used rich data on primary school enrolment, education expenditure, access to electricity, fixed broadband subscriptions, fixed telephone subscriptions, mobile cellular subscriptions, and individuals using the internet in Africa obtained from the World Development Indicators. Leveraging on panel autoregressive distributed lag model, we find that fixed broadband subscriptions, mobile cellular subscriptions, individuals using the internet, and access to electricity exert significant impacts on school enrolment in Africa. We find from the Granger causality test result a unidirectional causality between school enrolment and mobile phone subscription. Furthermore, we identified bidirectional causalities between school enrolment and access to electricity, education expenditure, fixed telephone subscriptions, fixed broadband subscriptions, and individuals using the internet. We conclude that information and communication technologies improve education in Africa.
KW - Access to electricity
KW - Broadband use
KW - Fixed telephone use
KW - Internet access
KW - Mobile cellular use
KW - Panel data
KW - School enrolment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85183377247&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10639-024-12504-6
DO - 10.1007/s10639-024-12504-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85183377247
SN - 1360-2357
VL - 29
SP - 15501
EP - 15532
JO - Education and Information Technologies
JF - Education and Information Technologies
IS - 12
ER -