It starts in the 1970s when a few of the better-endowed African schools were already undergoing a scholastic failure regarding the use of these new technologies: They were using fragile and costly equipment that necessitated time-consuming repairs with components compatibility. However, the underpinning reason for this first failure in the integration of ICT in education in Africa was that this progress took place at the margins of education strategies and methods: This creates a divide between the learning tool (ICT) and educational actions, educators and policy-makers did not know what to do with new and unfamiliar tools.

For several decades, introductory computer courses in Africa were offered in only a few secondary schools and some universities. While Information and Communication Technologies came to the forefront in North America and Europe, they were largely ignored in Africa. The urgency of this divide is particularly felt when the pedagogical integration of ICT appears to be ascendant in educational circles.
Even now, in several African countries, educators are unsure as to which overall strategies to use -integration across disciplines, independent work, individual or collective work, and so on. Progresses in educational applications of digital technology were hindered by both the fears and hopes it raised.

In a speech delivered at the University of Nairobi (Kenya), Barack Obama by then a Democratic Senator criticized the inertia of many African countries regarding technology and education. For instance, it has to be noted that South Korea and Kenya have had similar economies for the past 40 years, but South Korea now enjoys an economy that is 40 times larger than its African counterpart, particularly due to the successful implementation of technologies into all spheres of Korean society, including education.

For several year now, African education systems have been coping with a multitude of problems, and countries have initiated reforms that generally do not attach much importance to ICT. The ADEA (Association for the Development of Education in Africa) has stressed that ICT represent a learning channel with the potential to enormously improve the quality of basic education teaching. And yet there is a serious lacy of ICT research in Africa in the areas of effective educational uses and potential impacts on the quality of African education.

Although technology has jump-started the engine of the information era, it is now incumbent on all nations to take part in constructing the information society such that no person is barred from access to the knowledge available on the internet, and so that every person might share the benefits of a better future, market globalization and internationalization.