challenges in the adoption and utilization of information and communication technology in public...

WORLD ACADEMIC JOURNAL OF BUSINESS & APPLIED SCIENCES-MARCH-SEPTEMBER 2013 EDITION

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Challenges in the Adoption and Utilization of Information and

Communication Technology in Public Secondary Schools in Molo

Sub-County, Kenya

Bernard Komu Waweru (Corresponding author) & Cyrus Muigai Kihara

Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology P. O. Box 62000-00200, Nairobi, Kenya

Accepted 26 September 26, 2013

Abstract The study sought to determine the challenges that influence adoption and utilization of Information and Communication Technology in public secondary schools in Kenya. The study adopted a descripto-explanatory research design covering a stratified sample of 84 respondents drawn from 30 public secondary schools in Molo Sub-County. Data was collected by use of questionnaires and was later analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical analysis tools. According to the study findings, financial limitations (91.1%) was found to be the most important factor influencing ICT adoption and utilization with a correlation coefficient of 0.53 at 0.000 significance level. The study recommends that, the Government should allocate specific budget for ICT Integration in schools, initiate liberalization of telecommunications policies, lower taxes as well as encourage multi-partnership that involves donors, private companies (usually ICT based), NGOs and religious bodies to work together to garner resources and set priorities for ICT in education projects.

Key Words: Information and Communication Technology, financial limitations, liberalization, budget.

1. Introduction

Computer utilization in education setting has evolved over a long period since computers were first invented in the 1960s. According to Smith and Smith (1966), the vision of educational computing has run through several independent phases since its inception. although computer use and computer application have rapidly spread to many developing countries’ classrooms, and despite the many learning tools that have been developed for these computers, their impact and changes to learning are much smaller than expected, yet the potential for change is great. In this respect therefore, we tried to assess why the changes are so small, and what challenges mar the efforts towards computer adoption and integration for learning particularly in the Kenyan context.

It is the opinion of many researchers that reshaping the delivery of instruction is supposed to be in a scenario where ICT alters the learning environment and the learners (Heppell 2000), this however is not the case in Kenya where many schools remain highly handicapped when it comes to application of ICTs to manage the quality of output, or to raise teacher productivity owing to a myriad of challenges facing most schools with regard to adoption of ICTs in educational management. This has not only resulted in a slow rate of adoption of ICT despite its promise and potential for use in educational management, but has also led to adoption of computer

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related learning as technical subject as opposed to integration of its use in the entire teaching and learning process.

Further still, financial difficulties due to underperforming economies also makes investment in ICT a nightmare in many public schools. Whereas funding strategies adopted in implementing ICT in schools largely depend on the education policy of a country (Pelgrum & Law, 2003); specific models of implementation adopted are generally dictated by the nature of the education system.

In Kenya, funding strategy has largely remained the traditional public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives with partnership between Ministry of Education (MOE) and Computer for Schools-Kenya (CFSK), Kenya ICT Trust Fund, and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) e-schools initiative, remaining the major efforts towards funding infrastructure development. Whereas these efforts are commendable, a lot needs to be done as currently many public schools lack the basic ICT infrastructure due to poor funding as a result of large number of schools. There are currently over 4000 public secondary schools in Kenya and the recent massive increase in primary school enrolment occasioned by free primary education is putting pressure on the demand for and access to secondary schools (Republic of Kenya, 2007). As such, many public secondary schools remains concerned with the quality of education which is characterized by poor performance in core subjects such as Mathematics and Sciences. There are thus, obvious benefits for integrating computers into secondary schools as students at this age need to focus on subject-specific content, greater critical thinking skills, scientific inquiry, Mathematics, science and languages. Students will greatly benefit from the analytical, creative, and collaborative power of computers to map out and analyze assumptions, present ideas, and participate in projects with peers from around the country and the entire world via the internet.

1.1 Problem statement

Despite the proliferation of computer based-application in the public sector, the implementation of the same has remained a significant issue especially in public schools. ICT infrastructure even where available particularly in public secondary schools, is underutilized and they do not meet their potential or fail to be used at all. This is attributable to many challenges in adopting ICTs, Most important of which, is the challenge of leadership, financial limitations, teaching capability, content development, lack of technical support and the concern that ICT literacy among school managers is very low especially to those that live in the rural or remote areas part of Kenya (Yang, 2003). Indeed, for ICT integration programs to be effective and sustainable in Kenyan Schools, administrators themselves must be competent in the use of the technology, and they must have a broader understanding of the technical, curricular, administrative, financial, and social dimensions of ICT use in education.

Despite having little or no training in ICT, school leaders and teachers find themselves in a situation that requires them to understand and undertake some of these challenges. Failure to meet the challenges means that many schools would not be able to effectively implement ICT in their teaching and learning activities, leading to further widening knowledge gap and deepening existing economic and social inequalities between those who have access to and control of technology, and those who do not (Mingaine, 2013). These inequalities are clearly manifested in Kenya today as digital divide that exist between the rural and urban areas.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

The general objective of the study was to determine the challenges in the adoption, and utilization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) within the secondary education context in Molo Sub-county, Kenya. As a result, the following specific objective was pursued: To establish the influence of financial capacity on ICT adoption and utilization in public secondary schools in Molo Sub-county, Kenya.


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2. Literature review

Developing countries often have financial disadvantage due to underperforming economies and as such cannot afford huge investments that comes with ICTs’ technology implementation. Without financial support, ICT’s infrastructure will not be able to grow and play its role as backbone to improve the learning environment. Rajesh (2003) pointed out that economy is one of the critical difficulties that prevent developing countries to implement ICT in education. This fact was also observed by Richardson (2010), in the case study of Cambodia, where institutes were observed to require more computers and power supply in order to organize effective ICT courses. According to him, when implementation comes with money pressure and stress of changing, it will face high chance of being rejected. Further, a survey of Turkish schools by Yalin, Karadeniz and Sahin (2007), revealed that nearly 80% of principals and teachers claimed that lack of training and supporting hardware is a barrier to implementing ICT in their schools.

Accordingly, Implementation of ICT in schools largely depends on the education policy of a country. According to Pelgrum and Law (2003) Education policies could be broadly categorized as centralized or decentralized (which may involve state and district levels). Singapore and Hong Kong have centralized education system and both have a detailed ICT master plan that prescribes clear strategies, target, timelines and budget allocations (Singapore Ministry of Education, 1997). Other countries such as Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Chinese Taipei that have adopted centralized education system in terms of curriculum and education policies, funding and implementation support are delegated to the local, regional or district levels. In the USA popular strategy used entails the provision of incentives programmes by the central government; here specific implementation is left to the school and the district concerned, while the federal government only provides a small percentage of their funding (Anderson & Dexter, 2003). In India, the central government has adopted a strategy of not directly exerting influence on schools other than establishing ICT policies and strategies to government schools, which then act as models for disseminating knowledge to other schools nationwide ( Mallik , 2003) .

Another strategy that may find greater application in many developing countries is the use of pilot projects to develop prototypes for implementation as well as to act as role models for non-pilot schools, example of such projects are the pilot school in Hong Kong (law, Yuen, & Wong, 2001), Headlight projects in the USA, and the Smart schools in Malaysia (Smart School Project Team, 1997). For sub-Saharan African countries, The most well-known portable computing initiative is the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) scheme initiated by Nicholas Negroponte at the MIT Media Lab in 2005, the scheme was embraced by various countries such as Rwanda, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Ghana with varied level of success in implementation, for the case of Rwanda the schemes has achieved a high success rate after an initial trial in October/November 2007 in which 106 laptops were deployed in one primary class, followed by a pilot project involving 5000 laptops that was commissioned a year later (Nugroho & Lonsdale, 2009).

3. Methodology

This study adopted a descripto-explanatory research design. This design provides an accurate account of characteristics of a particular individual event or group in real life situation, (Kothari, 2004; Mugenda, 2008) it also allows explanation of the relationships that exist amongst variables under study (Saunders et al., 2009). The design is appropriate as it may be used for purposes of developing theories, identifying problems with current practice, making judgments’ or determining what others in similar situations are doing (Sekaran, 2008). Further, Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical analysis tools; mean and Spearman’s rank correlation to determine the relationship between variables under study while analysis of qualitative data involved organization of data into themes, as guided by the study objectives.


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4. Results and Analysis

The study targeted a total population of 84 respondents, however due to study limitations; the study gathered a total of 72 responses which represents 85.7 % response rate of which 81.9 % were male and 18.1% were female. 66.7 % of the respondents were Teachers while 33.3% were Administrators. Further, 77.8 % of the respondents had been employed for 0 to 5 years and 13.9 % between 5-10 years, while 8.3% have been teachers for more than 10 years.

Table 4. 1: Financial capacity Perception

FINANCIAL CAPACITY Mean N Std. Deviation

STRONGLY AGREE 2.48 9 .000

AGREE 2.65 12 .577

DISAGREE 3.44 30 .734

STRONGLY DISAGREE 3.00 21 . 643

Total 2.96 72 .763

According to the research findings, budget insufficiency of the school as the main obstacle to ICT integration had an overall mean of 2.96. (Table 4.1) With those disagreeing (91.1%) that their school had a budget provision for acquiring ICT posting a mean of 3.44 against 4.00 and a standard deviation of 0.734.

Table 4. 2: Correlation

FC A&U

Spearman's rho

FC

Correlation Coefficient

1.000 .528**

Sig. (2-tailed) . .000

N 72 72

A&U

Correlation Coefficient

.528** 1.000

. Sig. (2-tailed) .000

N 72 72

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

FC: Financial capacity

A&U: Adoption and Utilization

Further, there is a positive relationship between financial capacity of a school and its ability to adopt and use ICTs as indicated by a positive correlation coefficient of 0.528 at 0.000 significance level (Table 4.2). This indicates that financial capacity of a school has a very significant effect on its ability to adopt and use ICTs. Accordingly, the main obstacle for the integration of the ICT in schools was the insufficient budget allocated to ICT. This finding is consistent with several studies emphasizing the negative effects of this shortcoming (Dawes


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1999; Galanouli & McNair 2001; Tearle 2003). It can therefore be argued that a budget is required to update the systems which had been set previously and also, to purchase new technologies and expendable materials. When the ICT budget lacks the required funds, the ICT programme could be hindered influencing ICT adoption.

5. Conclusions

Public Secondary Schools in Molo Sub-County have not embraced information and communication technologies as indicated by low levels of adoption (79.2% rate their institution’s adoption and utilization of ICT as low). This low adoption and utilization of ICTs was linked to financial limitation with 91.1% of respondents agreeing that their schools do not have budget allocation for ICTs implementation. Financial limitation correlated highly with adoption and utilization (0.528) at p-value of 0.000 indicating that it is significant in influencing ICT adoption and utilization.

6. Recommendations

To overcome the challenge of financial limitation, the study recommends that the Government should allocate specific budget for ICT Integration in schools. At the broadest level, multi-partnership that involves donors, private companies (usually ICT based), NGOs, community based organizations (CBOs) and religious bodies should be encouraged to work together to garner resources and set priorities for ICT in education projects. Bodies that can spearhead this initiative are the Kenya ICT Trust Fund and Computers for Schools Kenya. Still, further liberalization of telecommunications policies and lowering of taxes by the Government will enable more competition and diversity of service providers in the industry; this will have the effect of lowering the cost of access to information and telecommunication infrastructure.

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