Digital Transformation in African Primary Schools: An Ecological Systems Analysis of Infrastructure, Trainings, and Practice

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, digital transformation has become a central theme in African education policy, yet primary schools across the continent continue to receive devices and connectivity pilots without experiencing durable pedagogical change. This paper offers a conceptual and policy-level analysis of three interlocking barriers to digital transformation in African primary education infrastructure, teacher training, and classroom practice through the lens of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. Drawing on global monitoring data from UNESCO and UNICEF, sub-Saharan African empirical studies spanning multiple countries, and established educational theory, the paper argues that these three challenges cannot be understood in isolation but must be examined as interconnected phenomena operating across multiple ecological levels: the microsystem (classroom and school), mesosystem (interactions between school, home, and community), exosystem (policy and institutional frameworks), macrosystem (cultural values and socio-economic structures), and chronosystem. The analysis reveals that only 32% of primary schools in sub-Saharan Africa had access to electricity in 2020, less than half of Africa's primary schools have internet access, and only about a quarter of teachers in low-income countries have received any ICT training foundational deficits that render most digital transformation initiatives ineffective from the outset. The paper concludes that sustainable digital transformation requires coordinated intervention across all systemic levels, addressing not only technical infrastructure but also the social, cultural, and political ecologies within which technology is embedded.   Keywords: Digital transformation, African education, ecological systems theory, Bronfenbrenner, ICT, infrastructure, Teacher professional Development, TPACK