Abstract

This paper set out to provide a skeptical perspective to the view that IT has the potential to bring people into the global community. While not doubting the merits of IT’s capabilities it proposed that such claims be qualified in view of disparities in the distribution of wealth between nations and between peoples. It focused attention on the plight of students at the University of Fort Hare, in the Eastern Cape, which is the poorest of South Africa’s nine provinces. It argued instead that IT has the likelihood of accentuating instead of bridging existing inequalities in wealth between countries and between peoples. It contended that not‘everybody’ is predisposed to becoming a role player in the global agenda given that access to IT and online facilities is stratified by income. This, the paper posited, is most likely to exacerbate the "global digital divide"—the growing disparity in wealth between countries of the North and the South, and between peoples, the information "haves" and "have-nots". The U.S.’s 1999 expenditure on IT, which stood at $762 as opposed to South Africa’s expenditure in the same year, which was $10.6, illustrates the "divide". But while on the surface the University of Fort Hare’s situation seemed very gloomy, the paper outlined positive, but modest initiatives not only to provide access to IT and online facilities, but also to quip staff and students with requisite skills to enable them to be role players in the global agenda