Head teachers’ utilisation of ict in management of basic schools in the Sagnarigu Municipality

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate head teachers’ utilisation of ICT in the management of basic schools in the Sagnarigu municipality in the northern part of Ghana. The study employed quantitative approach and descriptive survey design. The population comprised the head teachers of basic schools in the Sagnarigu municipality. Stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select head teachers of primary and junior high schools. Questionnaire was developed to gather data from the respondents. Steps were taken to check the validity and reliability of the research instrument prior to its administration. Pre-testing was conducted and Cronbach reliability co-efficient was used to check the reliability, which was found to be r=0.89. The statistical package used to analyze the data was SPSS version 23. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses respectively. The socio-demographic data of the respondents and the research questions 3 and 4 were analysed using frequencies and percentages. Conversely, mean and standard deviation were used for the analysis of data for the first and second research questions. The hypotheses one and two were tested using correlation and t-test respectively. The finding of the study showed that head teachers have average knowledge and skills in the use of ICT. It also emerged that the level of utilisation of ICT in managing the schools is not high. Again, the study revealed that some factors serve as drawbacks to the head teachers’ usage of ICT in managing their schools. The results also showed statistically significant correlation between head teachers’ knowledge and skills in ICT and level of utilization. Lastly, the study found a statistically significant difference in the male and female head teachers’ knowledge and skills in ICT. It can be concluded that the head teachers in the municipality only make marginal use of ICT in the management of the basic schools. The study therefore recommends that head teachers of the basic schools in the Sagnarigu Municipality should be given training in ICT to enable them incorporate ICT in the administration and management of their schools.