Challenges of Adoption of ICT in Technical Training Institutions within Nairobi County (eBook)

Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Multimedia, Internet, New Technologies, grade: none, University of Nairobi (School of Journalism), course: Communication studies, language: English, abstract: This study set out to investigate the extent to which public technical training institutes in Nairobi County have adopted ICT in the learning environment. Out of a population of four institutes, two were selected based on the total population of students which was over seven hundred. The other reason was that one was ISO certified while the other was in the process of being ISO certified. Data was collected by use of questionnaires which were for three groups of stakeholders. These were the administrators, teachers and students. From the study it can be concluded that the public funded technical institutes are facing several challenges as they seek to adopt ICT into the learning environment. These challenges can be grouped into three categories: These are Infrastructure, Training and E-Content. From the study the administrators in general were cognizant of the importance of adopting ICT into the learning environment. However the colleges were faced by a myriad of challenges ranging from the high cost of increasing the number of computer to upgrading the whole infrastructure. Despite having official websites they were not as yet interactive as they would have wished. The training of teachers was ongoing although most of the teachers showed little interest with some viewing it as a waste of time. The teachers felt that the institutions did not have enough computers and rooms to cater for the needs of all students. Also the administration needed to provide accompanying infrastructure such projectors and connections in various rooms. If the teachers are provided with computers at departmental level, then this would encourage them to learn through self drive. More computer based activities needed to be introduced such as the transmission of marks, notes and correspondence online. The study showed that the students were the most exposed to information technologies than the teachers and that they were very positive about the introduction of ICT related technologies for learning.