Abstract:
Education is a basic right and essential part of human rights as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For the right to education to be realized, the process of learning should reflect the needs and aspirations of society. Technology is one such avenue through which education objectives may be achieved. Whereas evidence shows an increase in investment in ICTs in education in Kenya, perceptions of teachers on use of ICTs as a teaching and learning tool in secondary school agriculture has not been studied much, more so in Bungoma County. The purpose of this study was to establish the teachers’ perceptions on use of ICTs in the teaching and learning of secondary agriculture in Bungoma County. A descriptive research design was employed. The target population of the study consisted of 498 agriculture teachers of secondary schools in Bungoma County. Purposive sampling was used to select 120 respondents. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Validity of the instrument was ensured by input from the supervisors from the Department of Agricultural Education and Extension at Egerton University. Reliability was established by pretesting it with 30 agriculture teachers from the neighbouring Kakamega County. Data was collected and analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20. The results were presented in frequencies, means and percentages. The study established that the perception of agriculture teachers towards the use of ICTs in teaching and learning was positive as a higher frequency of teachers agreed that use of ICTs in teaching and learning was useful. The study also established that few teachers used ICTs in teaching of agriculture as compared to other subjects as a higher percentage of agriculture teachers agreed that preparation of a lesson that involved use of ICT in teaching and learning was more demanding than the conventional approach. The study recommends that teachers of agriculture should have opportunity to train in use of ICT for teaching and learning, and also develop initiatives at personal level to improve their ICTs skills
