Willingness of basic school teachers to adopt information communication and technology tools for teaching in classrooms

Abstract

Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, ICT have been the most important technological tool for changing the global economy and causing rapid social change. The use of ICT creates a dynamic and proactive teaching and learning environment. The purpose of this study was to assess teacher’s willingness to adopt ICT tools for teaching at the basic level. To ascertain this, a cross-sectional study was conducted in among primary school teachers. 348 basic school teachers were interviewed. The researcher personally administered the questionnaire to the teachers. STATA 17.0 was used for data analysis after cleaning the data. Descriptive analysis was performed on the data and, the final results presented in charts and tables. The mean age of respondents was 28.5±4.4 years. Desktop computers were moderately available in most (251, 72.1%) of the respondents’ schools. 48% of the basic school teachers use ICT facilities in teaching and learning in classrooms while 52% do not. 240 (69.0%) of the study participants said maintenance issues have rendered the computers in their schools not accessible to the teachers as well as students. 63 (18.1%) mentioned unstable electricity as a challenge. ICT infrastructure are moderately available in basic schools in urban areas however, the basic school teachers do not use them in lessons delivery in classrooms. This was attributed to challenges such as low internet connectivity, poor funding, maintenance issues, unstable electricity. Based on the findings, I recommend that GES should organize regular workshops on ICT for teachers so that they become familiar with the modern pedagogy of imparting knowledge and skills.