A FIRST STEP TOWARDS AN
EFFECTIVE ICT INTEGRATION AT SCHOOL LEVEL IN GILGIT-BALTISTAN
Darvesh Karim
Senior Instructor,
Aga Khan University, Professional Development Centre North
Gilgit
ABSTRACT
The
Professional Development Centre North (PDCN) is an educational campus of AKU-IED, strategically planted in the heart
of Gilgit-Baltistan with a strong team of professional development teachers,
fully equipped and furnished infrastructure, dealing with research and providing
trainings and support to in-service teachers and headteachers of Gilgit-Baltistan
for their professional development and to achieve the ultimate goal of students
learning outcomes and the capacity building of organizations for more than 10
years.
Along
with its major focus on integrity, quality, relevance and access in all the
programmes offered by PDCN, also emphases and keep a very professional and
sharp eye on the newly emerging trends of information and communication
technology (ICT), which is rapidly influencing all the sectors of life generally
and education particularly. It has been proved through researches that headteachers have a critical role in
educational innovations. In order to encourage the use of computers or ICT
integration in schools among the staff and students, headteachers’ own attitude
towards using the technology matters a lot. In Pakistan, government sector is the largest
provider of education while computer’s integration in education is on its
initial phase and there have been identified two major findings of a research,
which need an urgent attention for future expected implementation and effective
integration of ICT in schools; i.e. computer trainings for headteachers are essential
to enhance positive attitude towards computers, and availability of computer in
headteachers’ office enhances self confidence and attitude.
Keywords: ICT Integration, Headteacher’s role,
Computer Trainings, Computer Facilitation
Introduction and Background
The
Professional Development Centre North (PDCN) is an educational campus of AKU-IED[1],
strategically planted in the heart of Gilgit-Baltistan with a strong team of
professional development teachers, fully equipped and furnished infrastructure,
dealing with research and providing trainings and support to in-service
teachers and headteachers of Gilgit-Baltistan for their professional
development and to achieve the ultimate goal of students learning outcomes and
the capacity building of organizations (Fullan, 2001) for more than 10 years.
PDCN is committed to support and improve the quality of teaching and learning
through professional development and associated research and evaluation
activities by reflecting and keeping the local and contextual needs and
priorities of the area in mind. PDCN’s focus is on the professional growth of the
teachers and headteachers through integrated practices of theory and research
with active links to the networks of teachers, headteachers and schools of two
major educational systems working in the area, i.e. government and private
schools. Field-based professional development is aimed at improving the quality
of teaching and learning at classroom and school management levels to address
educational needs.
PDCN
also focuses on research to explore and identify the educational problems and
their expected solutions. It’s every decision use to be data driven and bases on
the research findings. To provide the appropriate and updated services to the
larger communities and networks and to create even stronger relations with
these communities and networks, PDCN has been initiating new projects through
the world renowned philanthropists and funding agencies like European
Commission and AusAid (the funding agency of Government of Australia).
PDCN’s past successful fifteen years’
experience and trust among the communities is most valuable asset, which is
continue without any breach of confidence and trust, as we have been
successfully completing the projects and their outcomes and impacts are very
much visible and self explanatory in the area. PDCN can now proudly say that
its presence has been felt respectfully and as a trust worthy institution in
every corner and remotest valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan and of-course this is not
simply a claim, but many researches have already proved the success stories of
PDCN while some other researches are still underway.
Recently
PDCN has completed successfully five-year EDIP (Education Development and
Improvement Programme) project in 59 government schools with the financial
support from AusAid through Aga Khan Foundation Pakistan. The major goal of the
EDIP was to contribute to the overall socio-economic development of
Gilgit-Baltistan through enhancing access and equity; improving the quality and
relevance of education; and strengthening the governance and management of the
Government Education Department of Gilgit-Baltistan. To achieve the overall
goals of the project PDCN, along with other educational strategies and
intervention also takes the full advantage of the latest Information and
Communication Technologies available in GB to accelerate the achievement of
EDIP goals. Schools have been facilitated with computers and internet. Computer
trainings have been conducted for head teachers and teachers.
The Problem
Along
with its major focus on integrity, quality, relevance and access (IQRA) in all
the programmes offered by PDCN, also emphases and keeps a very professional and
sharp eye on the newly emerging trends of information and communication
technology (ICT), which is rapidly influencing all the sectors of life
generally and education particularly.
Pakistan is of course not the exception as ICT is also strongly taking roots
in the country, which is a developing nation with a population of approximately
more than 160 million and it, ranked 134th out of 177 countries on
the 2006 Human Development Index (UNDP, 2006). The ICT sector in Pakistan is
growing, particularly from the educational perspective. Over the last many years,
however, provision of computers has been one of the major focus areas for the
government. There is a growing realization among policy-makers that computers hold
great potential to the extent that the government is encouraging the use of computers
in education.
Technology
is becoming the medium for teaching and learning and ICT has distinct advantages
that surpass the classroom environment. The vision laid down by Pakistan’s
education policy is to have education for all its citizens and many programmes
have been launched by the provincial as well as Federal Government to achieve
these goals (National Education Policy, 2009). Yet, our country is behind
others that have successfully developed ‘Knowledge Societies’.
It
has been proved through researches that headteachers have a critical role in educational innovations (Chin, 2000; Karim,
2009). In order to encourage the use of computers or ICT integration in schools
among the staff and students, headteachers’ own attitude towards using the
technology matters a lot. In Pakistan, government
sector is the largest provider of education while computer’s integration in
education is on its initial phase and there have been identified two major
findings of a research (Karim, 2009) which need an urgent attention for future
expected implementation and effective integration of ICT in schools; i.e.
computer trainings for headteachers are essential to enhance positive attitude
towards computers, and availability of computer in headteachers’ office
enhances self confidence and attitude.
It
has been identified that teachers
or student-initiated computer projects or ICT integration endeavours have been undermined due to lack of
support from the headteachers as they use to have a
critical role in educational innovations (Chin, 2000). Today’s headteachers are
expected not only to manage the day to day activities and capacity building of the
school but also focus on students’ learning standards, data driven decision
making and restructuring efforts. School leadership is in fact the key
component in guiding the teaching-learning process necessary for preparing students
with the relevant knowledge and skills in today’s society to become a
productive citizen of the 21st century. In order to encourage the
use of computers or ICT integration in schools among the staff and students,
headteachers’ own positive attitude towards using the technology matters a lot
as attitudes influence not only headteachers’ initial acceptance of computers,
but their future behaviour regarding computers (Karim, 2009). Researchers are
of the opinion that awareness and attitudes toward computers, constitutes a
crucial criterion in the evaluation of computer application and usage including
the development of computer-based curricula (Woodrow, 1991; Kay, 1993;
Robertson et al, 1995).
The Solution
In Pakistan, government sector is
the largest provider of education. Computer’s integration in education is quite
on its initial phase in Pakistan in general and in Gilgit-Baltistan in
particular, and for it to become a reality, headteachers need to be trained and
they also use computers as part of their regular practice. Hence, to explore
government school headteachers’ attitude toward computer usage in education, a possibly
generalise-able survey conducted by Karim, (2009) with a sample of 185
headteachers from Sindh and Baluchistan had found various results. The survey
explored two major findings:
Trainings are Essential to Enhance
Positive Attitude Towards Computers
The
survey result showed that the use of computer and prior
computer training contribute to the overall attitude of the respondents towards
use of computer in education. It was evidently shown that prior computer
training contributed to the outcome variable significantly which suggests that if
the headteachers have attended training programmes, they are more likely to
have a positive attitude towards using computers in education. Need of computer
trainings to increase the positive attitude has also been identified by Davis (1989).While
the majority of the respondents were not exposed to computers and proper
trainings in the survey.
Keeping these findings in mind, the
ICT training for headteachers comprises several modules aimed at instruction in
basic ICT skills and the requirements in a teaching environment. It also
contains a module dealing with ICT integration in curriculum and instruction.
This approach is in line with international opinion that headteachers need to
feel comfortable and competent in basic computer skills, so that he/she could
be able to handle computer for the basic official purpose without being
dependent on subordinates, which will also lead to enhancement of positive
attitude toward computers in education.
EDIP’s intervention in this regard
in the six districts of Gilgit-Baltistan is remarkable and the expected
outcomes are encouragingly increased day by day, while only a couple of months
of intervention have been passed.
Availability of Computer in Office
enhances self confidence
Secondly,
it was found in the said survey that majority of the participants did not have
a computer in their offices. While it was evident that the use of computer in
offices, contributed more than prior computer training in the overall attitude
of headteachers (Karim, 2009). The findings in this study showed that the level
of self-confidence in computer use is correlated with positive computer
attitudes, supporting previous research (Shashaani, 1997). Using computers in
office more frequently and developing a variety of computer related skills and
techniques increases one’s knowledge of the computer as a whole. This broadens
one’s learning perspective and potential that in turn promotes a positive
feeling towards the computer use (Houtz & Gupta, 2001). Self-confidence was
found significantly high among the respondents who have computers available in
their offices, which predicts that respondents having computers in their
offices have access to use computer and ultimately their confidence level was found
significantly higher than the respondents, who do not have computers available
(Karim, 2009).
Therefore,
by providing computers in their offices and developing access to computers, we
can meet the needs of school authorities like headteachers and can motivate to
the agenda of Lifelong learning and can develop a positive attitude towards
computers which will lead to the effective integration of computers in
education.
Overall,
these two solutions are at significant level to tackle with according to the
research findings. Through EDIP project provision of basic computer trainings
and facilitation of a computer set and a printer to the headteachers of the
project school is in process which is proving to smoothen the school
environment to initiate effective and long-lasting computer integration in
education on next phases.
Purpose
The
major and long ranged purpose of this project is smoothening the atmosphere of
schools for the effective and long-lasting ICT integration in education and to
achieve this major goal, as a first step at school level, headteachers are being
exposed to the information and communication technology through provision of
the basic computing skills training and facilitating computers to their offices.
Headteachers are being provided opportunity to use the technology and thus
overcome fears and reservations. Special attention is being paid to
gender-related imbalances. This strategy will lead to achieve the ultimate goal
of making headteachers positively adaptive and ready for the effective and long
lasting integration of computers as headteachers are the key players in school
context, and without their active involvement, effective ICT integration seems
impossible.
REFERENCES
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methodological framework of interpretation and reflection. Proceedings of the
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