The document summarizes a study that examined the challenges to adopting and utilizing information and communication technology (ICT) in public secondary schools in Molo Sub-County, Kenya. The study found that financial limitations were the most significant challenge, with 91.1% of respondents agreeing their schools did not have budgets for ICT implementation. There was a strong positive correlation between financial capacity and ability to adopt/use ICT. The study recommends the government allocate specific ICT budgets to schools, liberalize telecommunications policies to lower costs, and encourage public-private partnerships to generate resources for ICT in education.

1. WORLD ACADEMIC JOURNAL OF BUSINESS & APPLIED SCIENCES-MARCH-SEPTEMBER 2013 EDITION
Journal of Network & Communication Technologies (JNCT)
SEPTEMBER 2013 VOL.1, No,7
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
1.000
FC
72
.528**
N
.000
72
Sig. (2-tailed)
.528**
.
Correlation
Coefficient
A&U
1.000
Spearman's rho
Correlation
Coefficient
A&U
.
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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