Financing Information Communication Technology Projects in Secondary Schools E-Learning: A Case of Mombasa County, Kenya

Abstract

Information communication and technology (ICTs) has become common place entities in all aspects of life. Within the education sector, ICT has begun to have a special attention although not extensively as in other fields both globally and locally. Limited funds still presents a challenge in rolling out the e-school projects in Kenyan secondary schools and more so in Mombasa County. This paper presents trends in financing ICT projects in secondary schools in Mombasa County and how projects in the sampled schools which are ICT complaint manage the IT programmes. Furthermore, the paper also sought to uncover the alternative financing options available that could complement the existing ICT projects in increasing the pace of e-schools project implementation. A case study was used using three categories of respondents in each school namely; the administrators, the teachers and the students who were issued with questionnaires and interview schedules whose results revealed that many of the schools which had ICT facilities depended heavily on government funding CDF in financing the ICT projects. The paper also reports that the schools under study were already using educational management software for various processes in the schools. It was revealed that schools still faced infrastructural challenges due to inadequate finances. Notable challenges including limited funding to support the purchase of the ICT facilities to improve access to educational materials, lack of training for teachers to adopt ICT as a teaching tool and lack suitable e-content for various subjects. The outcome of the findings indicated that largely the initial objectives of the project had been realized in a number of the sampled schools. Teachers, students and the school administrators were using computers to access educational resource material from the internet, prepare and process examination results, manage, monitor and process financial reports and communicate using email. It was also evident that the quality of teaching and learning, students’ level of interaction, reasoning, recall, synthesis and evaluation had improved tremendously. It is upon this background that the paper sought to analyze the impact of financing ICT projects in managing of secondary schools e- learning in Mombasa County, Kenya.