The Role of Computer-Based Learning in Expanding Access to Secondary Education for Girls in Hard-to-Reach Areas of Mabaale, Kagadi District, Uganda

This study investigated how computer-based learning expands secondary education access for girls in the hard-to-reach Mabaale Sub-County, Kagadi District, Uganda. While traditional research focuses heavily on urban technology deployment, this study’s originality lies in its empirical isolation of human capability over raw physical capital within a remote, infrastructure starved territory. Grounded in a quantitative cross sectional survey design, the study evaluated the predictive power of computer infrastructure, digital content, and digital skills on female students’ educational access. The study findings from the individual parameter estimates uncovered a strict operational hierarchy: digital learning skills emerged as the single most powerful catalyst for access (B = 0.441, p = .001), followed by digital content delivery (B = 0.446, p = .015). Conversely, physical computer infrastructure demonstrated a negative, statistically non-significant relationship (B = -0.340, p = .084), proving that dropping hardware into marginalized zones fails to override external socioeconomic barriers without human capital development. Collinearity and residual diagnostics verified the mathematical stability and homoscedasticity of the ordinary least squares estimates. This study shows that giving girls confidence to use technology matters more than just buying computers for schools. To fix digital inequality in Africa, leaders must stop focusing only on hardware and instead fund local tech training camps and offline digital lessons.

Computer-based learning, Girls' education, Rural secondary education

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