Beyond the Digital Divide: Theorizing "Environmental Support" as the Fourth Pillar of TPACK through Teacher Agency in Pakistani Higher Education

Abstract

Although current discussion in the world of higher education leans toward Web 3.0 and Generative AI, Global South institutions still face systemic digital precarity. We carried out a qualitative study to understand internal pedagogical rationale of 25 English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher educators in one of the private universities in Pakistan in order to find out how they negotiated the extreme tension between institutional Digital Ambition (institutional mandated, heavy-server Learning Management Systems) and infrastructural Digital Reality (rolling power interruptions and student data poverty). With the help of Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA), we have been able to find that educators are neither adopting nor shunning technology but are instead acting as resilient orchestrators. Out of student equity, the participants performed a Pedagogical Pivot and resorted to subversive compliance to circumvent multi-million-rupee official platforms with low-bandwidth mobile messaging applications, which here are considered the Shadow LMS. In an attempt to overcome the theoretical weaknesses of the current technology-centric models, this paper officially introduces TPACK-ES (Environmental Support) model. The study separates internal Contextual Knowledge (XK) and external material reality, putting Environmental Support as the fourth pillar of the TPACK framework. With this new model we make a conclusive forecast of the future of an impending AI Divide and provide strategic policy suggestions to justify infrastructural resilience in global higher education.