Nepalese Teachers’ ICT Readiness Survey
Submitted to
UNESCO Kathmandu
Submitted by
Ganesh B Singh
April 2015
Contents
Context 2
Study methodology and sample 2
Demographics of the sample teachers 2
Teachers’ knowledge and understanding of ICT policy 3
ICT skills of teachers 5
ICT-enhanced innovative pedagogy 6
Professional development of teachers 7
Research and Development 8
Context
This readiness survey of Nepalese school teachers in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) has been undertaken to find out teachers’ existing status as well as probable needs to facilitate ICT-pedagogy integration in the teacher training.
Study methodology and sample
This survey adapted the survey form used in other countries as well. Altogether 201 teachers from 25 schools from 5 districts Jhapa, Sarlahi, Kavreplanchowk, Rasuwa and Doti were covered . Rural (VDCs) and Urban (District Headquarter or Municipality) were covered as presented in the map. The districts represented mountain (Rasuwa), hill (Kavreplanchowk and Doti) and Terai (Jhapa and Sarlahi). From each of the districts about 40 teachers were covered representing rural and urban schools as well as public and private ones. At least one of the sample school sampled is private school for their representation in the survey. Most of the teachers present on the day of visit in the school filled up the survey form.
Demographics of the sample teachers
Altogether 201 teachers were covered in this study – 41 teachers from Rasuwa district and 40 each from Jhapa, Sarlahi, Kavreplanchowk, and Doti districts. Out of them 109 (54.2%) teachers were from urban area and 92 (45.8%) were from rural area and in terms of public private school, 73.6% were from public schools and 26.4% were from private schools . Similarly, 63 of the teachers covered in the survey were female teachers and 138 male teachers. Regarding teachers’ age, majority (34.8%) of them were at the age bracket 41-50 years followed by 31-40 (31.3%) and under 30 years (27.9%). Six percent of them were also at the age bracket of 51-60 years.
Among the sample teachers 53.2% were mainly teachers of grades 6-10, 38.8% of grades 1-5, 7% of grades 11-12, and 1% of higher level. The main subject sample teachers were teaching has been English language (24.4%), Nepali language (19.4%), Mathematics (16.9%), Science (10%), Social Studies (9%), Health Population Environment (6.5%), Optional Subject (6.5), and Computer (6.5). About 4% of the teachers were teaching other subjects. About one fifth of the teachers in sample had less than 4 years of teaching experiences, 24.9% of teachers having 5-10 years of experiences, 30.8% having experiences of 10-20 years, 21.4% of 20-30 years, and 2% over 30 years.
Teachers’ knowledge and understanding of ICT policy
Teachers were asked if they are aware of national policy for introducing ICT in education, 55.7% said that there is a national policy and they are right – there is national ICT policy in Nepal. About 20% of the teachers said that there is no national policy and another 25% said they do not know about it which depicts their ignorance of existence of the national ICT policy. Of the 112 teachers who said that there is a national policy on ICT in Nepal, 79% of them agreed that they can describe the strengths and weaknesses of the national policy for introducing ICT in schools and over one fifth do not. Impact of the national ICT policy in their classroom practices has been observed in different ways by the respondents as presented in the following table:
Table 1: Impact of the national ICT for education policy in the classroom practices
Responses / Frequency / PercentIt has not changed of my classroom practice at all / 24 / 21.4
It has rarely changed of my classroom practice at all / 30 / 26.8
It has changed some aspects of my classroom practice / 48 / 42.9
It has changed all aspects of my classroom practice / 7 / 6.3
Not applicable / 2 / 1.8
Total / 111 / 99.1
Missing / 1 / 0.9
About half of the teachers viewed that the national ICT policy has not changed of their classroom practice at all (21.4%) or has rarely changed (26.8%). On the other hand, 42.9% of the teachers viewed that the national ICT for education policy has changed some aspects of their classroom practice and 6.3% viewed that it has changed all aspects of their classroom practice.
In case of school level policy for introducing ICT at the school, 44.8% of the teachers said that there is. Rest of the teachers said there was none (38.3%) or there do not know about it (16.9%). Among the 90 teachers who said that there is a policy for introducing ICT at their school, 91% of them also said that they are able to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the school ICT policy. Teachers’ understanding of the school ICT policy/endeavors seems to be better compared to the national one which is 55.7% on knowledge about existence of national ICT policy and 79% on being able to describe it by the teachers who are aware of its existence. School level ICT policy/endeavor has been observed to be helpful in improving many (24.4% teachers) or some (36.7% teachers) aspects of classroom practice while 28.9% of teachers observed it has changed only few aspects and 7.8% observed none has changed as presented in the table below:
Table 2: Impact of the school ICT policy in the classroom practices
Responses / Frequency / PercentIt has changed no aspects of classroom practice / 7 / 7.8
It has changed few aspects of classroom practice / 26 / 28.9
It has changed some aspects of classroom practice / 33 / 36.7
It has changed many aspects of classroom practice / 22 / 24.4
Not applicable / 2 / 2.2
Total / 90 / 100.0
School/community/local level participation is important for a viable and workable educational policy. In this respect teachers were asked if they had an opportunity to participate in national consultations for ICT policy development. Only 22 (10.9%) said that they had and their participation were in – focus group interview or discussion (13 teachers), survey (3 teachers), seminars/conferences (10 teachers), policy planning workshops (2 teachers), public consultation (4 teachers), and informal talk (1teacher). Similarly, teachers were asked about their participation in school level ICT policy development and 80 (39.8%) of teachers were involved in this endeavor in some ways – focus group interview or discussion (55 teachers), seminars/conferences (27 teachers), policy planning workshop (2 teachers), general discussion (3 teachers), staff meeting (5 teachers), and meeting with School Management Committee (1teacher).
ICT infrastructure
Effective use of ICT in the classroom requires both readiness from the teachers as well readiness of schools. In this respect ICT related infrastructural provisions were students through teachers’ observations. Regarding reach of the teachers to the internet, 63.2% of the teachers pointed that internet-connected computer could be accessed in one or more places of their schools – classroom (6.5%), computer lab (59.2%), library (10.9%), and teachers’ lounge (22.9%). About 61% of the teachers had also access to internet-connected devises (PC, mobile phone, tablet, etc.) at their home – it is mainly the mobile phone. About 36% of the teachers have their own laptop or desktop computer where they can prepare lessons for their class if needed. Out of them 30% have their personal device and 6% of teachers said it is provided by the school. Provision of facilities such as networking, server, and e-library were reported to be available in their schools by teachers (figure 2).
The digital resources available for the teachers to use in their classroom teaching were from various sources – Ministry of Education (8.5% teachers), fellow teachers (30.8% teachers), random websites (29.4% teachers), open educational resources (49.3% teachers), developed by the teacher (20.4% teachers).
About 36% of teachers said that there was some sort of technical support available in the school when needed – through an in-house technical support team, by teachers (26.9% teachers); through an in-house technical support team specifically hired for this assignment; through a technical service from the manufacturer (0.5% of teachers); and through a district level technical support (5% of teachers). The time duration that usually take in the school to get a technical problem fixed as stated by the teachers is – within a day (15.4% teachers), within 2-3 days (30.8% teachers), within in a week (25.9% teachers), within 2 weeks (8% teachers), more than 2 weeks (13.4% teachers), and 6.5% of the teachers said that it is not solved at the school at all.
Teachers’ responses on the use of computer for classroom teaching indicated that 3% use it daily, 14.4% at least once a week, 11.9% at least once a month, 27.9% rarely used it, while 42.8% never used. The kinds of technology used by the teachers in the classroom teaching were – TV (4.5% teachers); radio (22.9% teachers); digital camera (13.4% teachers); projector (8.5% teachers); interactive whiteboard (30.3% teachers); tablet (5.5% teachers); mobile phone (85.6% teachers); audio cassettes (3% teachers), and laptop (0.5% teachers).
ICT skills of teachers
Teachers reported that they used ICT for various activities related to classroom teaching learning; however their frequency of these activities is low. Tasks performed by the teachers are presented in the following table:
Table 3: Use of ICT for different tasks
Responses / PercentCreate a lesson plan using a word processor (e.g. MS Word) / 43.3
Create a presentation slide for classroom teaching / 28.9
Create pedagogical tools using spreadsheets / 24.4
Create a web page / 6.5
Create audio-visual material for teaching and learning (e.g. e-book, digital stories, movie, animation, etc.) / 41.8
Create a mobile app / 13.4
Similarly, teachers’ responses on their capability and use of ICT indicated that about 65% of used social networks for posting a picture or comment; 52% used social networks for teaching; about half of them had email account and send emails as presented in the following table:
Table 4: Teachers’ capability to use and use of ICT
Responses / PercentCreate an email account / 49.8
Send email / 49.8
Use videoconference application (e.g. Skype, WebEx, etc. / 31.8
Create an online sharable folder (e.g. dropbox) / 27.4
Choose an appropriate social network for teaching purposes / 36.8
Create and maintaining a blog / 9
Create a Wiki / 7
Post a picture or comment on social networks (FB, Twitter, Youtube, etc.) / 64.7
Use social networks for teaching (collaboration, sharing, etc.) / 51.7
Communicate with students and parents online / 29.4
Teachers also reported their capabilities to use ICT for the browsing purpose as well which were – use of search engine by 45% teachers, use of web browser by 40% of teachers and so on as presented in the following table:
Table 5: Teachers’ capability to use browser
Responses / PercentUse a web browser / 39.8
Use a search engine to find information on the web / 44.8
Evaluate the credibility of the information from the web / 29.9
Reference the sources / 28.9
With respect to capabilities of the teachers in the use of installing software, creation of spreadsheet and use of networked record keeping the responses were as following:
Table 6: Teachers’ capability on installation, spreadsheet and networked record keeping
Responses / PercentInstall new software on a computer / 31.3
Create a spreadsheet to manage grades and data / 32.3
Use a networked record keeping platform to take attendance, submit grades, and maintain other student data / 44.3
ICT-enhanced innovative pedagogy
Teachers’ knowledge and capability to use ICT to enhance classroom pedagogy is very important. In this respect, teachers were asked the extent of use of various pedagogical approaches by them in their classroom.
Figure 3: Pedagogical practices of teachers
Teachers’ responses indicated that dominant pedagogical practices is lecturing in the classroom with the help of textbook as reported by 80% teachers using it day-to-day. While other approaches were less in use in their day-to-day classroom teaching learning practices. Lecture with other teaching materials created or adapted by teacher (e.g. worksheet, game, e-course, movie, etc.) other than lecture slides was never used by 48% teachers; collaborative learning never used by 35%, project-based learning never used by 36% and real-world problem solving never used by 34% of the teachers.
Professional development of teachers
The survey also attempted to depict professional development opportunities to the teachers in terms of ICT-related training as presented in the following table:
Table 7: ICT-related training to the teachers
Responses / PercentUsing school administrative system (EMIS) / 7.5
Computer literacy (basic productivity tools) / 47.3
Using subject-specific software / 6.5
Teaching ICT as a subject / 9.5
Creating multimedia resources / 6.5
Using and integrating government-provided digital resources into classroom teaching / 5.5
Finding, adapting and evaluating resources from the Internet / 17.4
Planning lesson and/or projects that integrate ICT / 7.0
ICT-enhanced innovative pedagogy (e.g. project based learning, computer-supported collaborative learning, etc.) / 8.5
Using social network for teaching and learning / 14.9
Using ICT for assessment / 10.0
High number of teachers (47.3%) stated that they were provided with ‘computer literacy’ skills followed by training on ‘finding, adapting and evaluating resources from the Internet’ (17.4% teachers); ‘using social network for teaching and learning’ (14.9%); ‘using ICT for assessment’ (10%) as presented in the above table. In the last 12 months, 22.9% teachers had ICT related training of less than 4 hours; 6.5% teachers 5-15 hours; 3% teachers 16-40 hours; and 2.5% teachers more than 40 hours ICT related training.