E-Readiness Status of Primary Schools Implementing Digital Devices in Kisii County

Abstract

Delivery of education content to learners in many learning environments has greatly been enhanced by the deployment and implementation of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the world today. Many developing countries are putting in place strategies to ensure their education systems use ICT to improve and diversify learning to meet the global changes in technology. In Kenya, ICT Integration in Primary Education is one of the key flagship programmes that has received keen attention by the government in the past few years through the primary schools Digital Literacy Programme (DLP). This research endeavoured to establish the e-readiness of primary schools implementing use of digital devices in Kisii County. Survey research design was applied in the study. The population of the study constituted of 710 primary school head teachers, 1,420 standard one and two teachers and 71,000 standard one and two pupils. Sample size was determined using the fisher formula and the sample consisted of 249 primary school head teachers, 302 standard one and two teachers and 381 standard one and two pupils. Purposive sampling was used to select schools, head teachers and teachers. Simple random sampling was used to select the specific schools to include in the study and proportionate sampling was used to determine the number of respondents from each school. The research instruments applied in the research included self-administered questionnaires for teachers and head teachers and interview schedules for pupils. To ascertain the reliability of the research instruments, a pilot test was carried out and a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.76 was realized. Data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively using descriptive statistics in SPSS.The research established that the main impediment to implementation of the DLP was the psychological and financial readiness within the schools. There should be a well planned training schedule for teachers and a budget be put in place for the primary schools for the DLP.