Schoolbased factors influencing integration of Information Communication Technology in public secondary schools, Migwani district, Kitui county, Kenya

Abstract

Many schools are restructuring their infrastructure to accommodate ICTs as it is of great help in providing multimedia information and allow access to a broader range of instructional resources. The purpose of the study was to investigate school based factors influencing integration of information communication technology in public secondary schools, Migwani district, Kitui County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were to establish the influence of ICT infrastructural capacity on integration of ICTs, to determine the influence of teacher’s ICT knowledge and skills on integration of ICTs, to establish the relationship between ICT technical support to teachers and integration of ICTs, to establish the influence of school administration support on integration of ICTs in teaching and learning process in public secondary schools in Migwani District, Kitui County. The researcher adopted a descriptive survey to gather data. The target population of the study was all the 40 principals 300 teachers and 2400 form 3 students. From the total population of 2400 form three students 331 students were sampled using simple random sampling. The number of teachers sampled were 100 which is over 30% of the population. All the 40 principals were sampled. The study findings have revealed that integration of ICTs in the secondary schools is hindered by factors such as: Inadequate infrastructure, teachers have poor pre-service training in ICT because only very few have a diploma in ICT, Students on the other hand lack the skills to use computers in their schools, technical help is inadequate despite regular computer breakdown of the old computers. The administrative practices include financing computer programmes in school and facilitating in-service training of the teachers as well as employing teachers to teach computer skills. Most schools lack ICT policies that would enable proper integration of ICTs in teaching and learning. The researcher concluded that the interplay of factors have negatively influenced and slowed the use of ICTs in teaching and learning in secondary schools in Migwani District, Kitui County. These includes unavailability and inappropriate ICT infrastructure in the secondary schools; limited ICT knowledge and skills for both the teachers and the students characterized by inadequate time for in-service courses for teachers; limited technical support during teaching and learning process and restrictive administrative practices mainly limited budgetary allocations and lack of proper ICT policies in the secondary schools. Therefore there has been limited use of ICTs in class presentation in secondary schools in Migwani District, Kitui County.