International Journal of Education and Development using ICT

International Journal of Education and Development using ICT > Vol. 15, No. 2 (2019)

Barriers Perceived by Teachers for Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Classrooms in Maharashtra, India

Chandan Sanjayraj Singhavi, Assistant Professor
Prema Rajeev Basargekar, associate professor

Abstract
Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in school education is considered one of the important tools to make education learner-centric by making learning more interactive and engaging. ICT is school education also plays a vital role in reducing the digital divide between different socio-economic classes in a developing country like India. As an emerging country, India faces a unique challenge of high growth accompanied by a large number of unemployed manpower which is not educated and skilled enough to take advantages of the growing economy. Integrating ICT in school curriculum can also build necessary skill-sets in children required to take jobs in knowledge and information-oriented economy. The Central government, as well as many State governments, are therefore implementing policies to encourage schools to adopt ICT through various ways such as the provision of IT infrastructure, integrating ICT in the school curriculum, providing training support to the teachers to learn new technology and new pedagogy, etc. At the same time, it is seen that there is a very lukewarm response from the schools. Implementation of ICT in school education is still at the nascent stage in India. Most of the schools have adopted ICT mainly to oblige the government regulations and ICT is still not fully integrated into school curriculum and academic structure. School teachers have a decisive role in the effective implementation of ICT in the classroom. Their level of acceptance to new pedagogy using ICT, enthusiasm, and engagement is a key to successful implementation. The existing research shows that the lack of willingness of the teachers to use ICT in the classroom is one of the major hurdles in its implementation at the ground level. At present, there are very few studies made to identify these perceived barriers of the teachers and find out how these can be removed or at least mitigated. This paper focuses on identifying the barriers to use ICT in the classroom from the teachers’ perspectives. It classifies perceived barriers into internal or intrinsic and external or extrinsic categories depending on whether teachers perceive constraints within themselves (such as lack of confidence or adequate skills, etc.) or constraints beyond their control (such as lack availability of time, infrastructure, etc.). The study uses a rank order method to find out critical and non-critical barriers perceived by the teachers. The paper uses logistic regression analysis to find out how the willingness of using ICT can be improved if some barriers are mitigated. The study is based on the surveyed data of 515 school teachers teaching from grade 5th to grade 10th. These teachers were surveyed from Greater Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Maharashtra state, India. The study has covered school teachers from different types of schools which can be classified as per the school boards, ownership structures as well the language of delivery in the schools. The representation from different types of schools is required to find out the impact of the school environment on the perceived barriers of the teachers. The paper finds that the teachers have given high ranking to external/ extrinsic barriers which are beyond their control and low ranking to internal/ intrinsic barriers. The study also finds out that that willingness to use ICT in the classroom will be significantly improved if these barriers are mitigated. It was also found out that the school environment plays an important role in building teachers' perceptions as teachers from the English medium schools perceived fewer barriers than teachers from regional medium schools.

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