A study of the effects of limited exposure to ict in the secondary education of rural and low-income students in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka has a proud tradition of free education in primary to University levels and the literacy score of the country is very high compared with other developing countries. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an important emerging field in accomplishing crucial objectives in Education. Sri Lankan government has been taken several attempts to implement ICT educational programs and to integrate ICT education to school education curriculum since the year 2006. However, it has not been achieved the projected standard. Computer literacy level of 39.2% is estimated in the urban population of Sri Lanka recently, and considerably lower percentages are assessed in rural areas (25.5%) and estates (9%). This is very strong evidence that ICT literacy has not spread across the country at the same pace. These differences start from secondary education and the consequences very much affect the higher education and job. The study mainly analyses the effects of ICT education in the secondary level of education through literature survey and by questionnaires and interviews with major stakeholders of ICT education such as officials, heads of schools, teachers, lecturers, instructors and students. I found that there is a large gap between urban and rural areas secondary education in terms of infrastructural facilities, ICT laboratories, qualified teachers, quality of training programmes, and teaching and study materials. I recommend equity in the distribution of physical and human resources and awareness programmes in all the government schools and the improvement of ICT secondary education in terms of curricula, student centred teaching, outcome-based education, special evaluation system, English language, and continuous monitoring.