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Reviewing the Management Procedures from a Down-Up Approach to Integrate ICT in Schools to Enhance Work: a Case Study at a Model School in Mauritius

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Reviewing the Management Procedures from a Down-Up Approach to Integrate ICT in Schools to Enhance Work: a Case Study at a Model School in Mauritius International Journal of Educational Policy Research and Review Vol.2 (8), pp. 103-112 October, 2015 Available online at http://www.journalissues.org/IJEPRR/ http://dx.doi.org/10.15739/IJEPRR.019 Copyright © 2015 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article ISSN 2360-7076 Original Research Article Reviewing the management procedures from a down-up approach to integrate ICT in schools to enhance work: A case study at a model school in Mauritius Received 18 August, 2015 Revised 14 September, 2015 Accepted 17 September, 2015 Published 8 October, 2016 Mahboob Sooltan The integration of ICT tools in the school environment is being canvassed Sohawon*2 by the Government of Mauritius as it is viewed as being the first step in the 1 digitalisation efforts of the country’s services. This paper sets out to Yugesh Dutt Panday and investigate teachers’ opinion in a model school about the integration of ICT 1 Abdoul Khabir Baxou in school and to feedback same for management concerns to redirect 1Ministry of Education and procedures to enhance work at school. This study is of particular Human Resources, Tertiary importance as a bottom-up approach is advocated to fine tune Education and Scientific management practices from the end users perspectives. A case study Research. methodological approach has been used to suit the research design. Data 2Mauritius Institute of Education has been obtained through questionnaire survey and interviews in the MIE. backdrop of documentary search. The raw data has been filtered and was graphically treated using Microsoft Excel 2010 and a statistical treatment *Corresponding Author Email: of the data collected was interpreted usefully by SPSS Ver 16.0 [email protected] Tel.: +230 5761 0202 Key words: Education development, Mauritius, ICT, model school INTRODUCTION The United Nation Educational Scientific Cultural Mauritius was amongst the few African states chosen to Organisation (UNESCO) professes that Information and showcase the implementation of the SANKORE project Communication Technology (ICT) can contribute to which aimed to bridge the digital divide between Africa support the pillars onto which quality of learning and and the more developed countries in the education sector teaching rest (available at (Bahadur and Oogarah, 2013). Indeed the use of ICT as a http://www.uis.unesco.org/Communication/Pages/ict- tool in schools carries in it the promise to improve student education.aspx [last accessed 24.3]). ICT can therefore find achievement, extend access to schooling, increase practical applications in the scenarios of education efficiencies and reduce costs, prepare students for lifelong reforms in creating universal access to education. ICT in learning, and train them for a globally competitive the field of education also holds the promises to help in the workforce (Williams, 2000). However, amidst the furor capacity building of teachers as they learn to use ICT tools which hails ICT as one of the means to cater for the to better the school’s service delivery. The importance of Education For All country goals, there is a slow but yet ICT has also been discussed in the literature from the point growing literature to suggest that the inclusion of ICT in of view to make of educational management and the educational landscape may have fallen short of its administration more efficient (Anthony, 2012; Stuart et al., expectations over the years. There are many reasons 2009; Williams, 2008). which may account for this deficit but one prominent In Mauritius, the use of ICT in education has gained feature tends to put forward that school readiness factors greater impetus since the last decade when the such as willingness of the school administration to plan the Government through the Ministry of Education joined in integration of ICT in the working culture of the school may regional initiatives such as the New Partnership for not have been canvassed properly (Pelgrum, 2001; Africa's Development (NEPAD) e-school programme Bingimlas, 2009). (Ramharai and Goodoory, 2003). A few years later, This paper therefore comes at an opportune time as it Int. J. Educ. Pol. Res. Rev. 104 proposes to investigate how few critical school digital world in order to realize students’ full potential. organisational factors such as school leadership, school e- Anderson (2010) sets out to plan the integration and facilities and teacher empowerment may be brought adoption of ICT in school scenarios where distinct phases together to make way for the integration of ICT tools in the evolve systematically and build on each other to include educational landscape of a typical state secondary school ICT in the working environment of schools. Anderson in Mauritius. It is here argued that until and unless the (2010) particularly argues that before the ultimate school administration is convinced about the potential that ‘transforming’ stage is reached, schools at the ‘applying’ ICT tools carry and strives to work the integration of ICT in stage must have acquired ICT equipment throughout their school from a bottom up approach; no further deployment organization and where school administrators use ICT for of action plan will take place which will trickle down to more organizational and management tasks. classroom situations. The built up of school culture to encourage the use ICT tools in educational settings is School culture, leadership and planning for ICT in established from management commitment to engage the schools teaching staff to do so. It is only then that other plans will follow to guide the use ICT tools in school through other Collis and Moonen (2002) remark that new cultures need supportive managerial actions such as evaluation and to be created in order to respond to the opportunities and feedback. the challenges of the digital world. Although hard to define and difficult to put a finger on, culture is extremely The aims of this research powerful. This ephemeral, taken-for-granted aspect of schools, too often over-looked or ignored, is actually one of Taking into the consideration that policy makers at the the most significant features of any educational enterprise. Ministry of Education in Mauritius want to see the Culture influences everything that goes on in schools inclusion of ICT tools in the school environment as a (Firestone and Wilson, 1985). School leaders from every significant opportunity (Jhurree, 2005); this paper sets out level are the key to shaping school culture. Principals to investigate how a typical state secondary school plans communicate core values in their everyday work. Teachers and addresses the integration of ICT tools in its reinforce values in their actions and words. The role of administrative routines to enhance service. In the wake of school leaders in the crafting of cultures is pervasive as this school based strategic initiative, important questions their words, their nonverbal messages, their actions, and will seek to address how the leadership style and potential their accomplishments all shape culture (Deal and of the school head can bring about the right synergy to pull Peterson, 1994; Peterson and Deal, 1998). resources together to integrate ICT tools in the In the quest for conditions that support the integration administrative routines. This paper also attempts to build of educational technology into schools, recent attention the case that an e-work culture in a school organisation has been paid by researchers (Fishman and Zhang, 2003), must first be established from a bottom- up approach and policy makers (Zhao and Conway, 2001) and practitioners same must be felt by teachers before they will show the to the importance of technology planning. Technology interest and the need to use ICT tools in classroom planning or information and communication technology situations. It is as well interesting to investigate how clear (ICT) policy planning is commonly referred to as the procedures and follow up actions need be explained and process of developing, revising and implementing a school implemented so that teachers may make sense of their technology plan that guides teachers and the school obligations. This paper has therefore limited itself to organisation in the integration of technology for teaching investigate the administrative tasks of the school to make and learning (Baylor and Ritchie, 2002). In a technology the use of ICT tools prevalent at school. It has not sought to plan, a school describes its expectations, goals, contents deal at all into the use of ICT tools in pedagogy or any and actions concerning the integration of technology in curricular issues involving inclusion of ICT tools in lessons education. Vanderlinde et al. (2012) argues that the above planning and teaching. interest in school technological planning has not received much of attention since literature is sparse concerning Literature review how schools can develop their local ICT policy capacity and how to establish an ICT policy plan. However, research and The world is in the face of an overwhelming conclusion: findings so far by Tondeur et al. (2008) tend to show that a students entering schools are already ‘digital natives’ and school ICT plan should not be the depository of the school the modes of teaching need to change because learners are principal alone. In fact, the ICT plan must be detailed out changing by growing up in a digital world (Lu et al., 2015; so that there is a shared meaning amongst stakeholders for Bennett et al., 2008). There is therefore a strong case for ICT, and coordinating their relations and interactions in schools to adapt to this reality and show up capacity to keeping with the school’s culture. Probably the preferred engage teachers and students in an environment where mode of leadership is the distributed leadership model the tools used to organise learning processes should be as where at school teachers are also called to participate in enticing. Schools must now take up the responsibility to the process of ICT policy planning at school considering build on this foundation to meet the challenges of the that the latter is a multifaceted phenomenon grounded in Sohawon et al.
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