Teaching Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Zimbabwean Polytechnical Colleges: Success and Challenges

Abstract

The aim was to investigate the success and challenges of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Zimbabwean Polytechnics. The study was guided by the objectives that included assessing the success in common computing skills levels among the staff and students, investigating levels of usage of ICT skills adoption and integration between students and staff, and to investigate the challenges in ICT skills adoption and integration between staff and students. Relevant literature was covered in chapter two. The literature was presented by referring to different researchers that wrote on challenges of ICT adoption and integration in the form of constructive argument by the aid of authors in support and those against. The research adopted interprevist research philosophy he target population of the study constituted 220 employees of the polytechnics and was reduced to 140 making use of sample size determination model by Krejice and Morgan. Operating systems, word processing, spreadsheets, presentation software, and use of the internet were the common computing skills level among the staff and students. Frequency use of ICT tools in teaching and learning, frequency use of computers and the Internet for teaching and learning purposes, mandatory use of computers for teaching and learning, students being conversant with the use of ICT tools, and having a college budget to support ICT skills development determined the levels of usage of ICT skills adoption and integration between students and staff. The challenges in ICT skills adoption and integration between staff and students were lack of funding from the government and stakeholders, improper ICT infrastructure, expensive hardware and software costs and lack of skills and expert knowledge. The recommendations of the study were that the institutions should upgrade their ICT infrastructure and resources in order to maintain the success in computing skills level of staff and students, come up with short computer courses with diverse computer packages to enhance the level of ICT skills usage of staff and students and identify critical needs in the community and come up with potential projects to sustain themselves and build a reliable ICT infrastructure.