Abstract:
Information Communication and Technologies (ICT) mediums in education have become a desirable element for the enhancement of quality of education over the past few decades. More importantly, the need to revise the structure of primary education has been at the heart of the academia since it amounts for the future of the students. This research aims to identify the successful ways of implementing ICT-integrated programs at the primary level learning in private and public schools of Peshawar. Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and is the sixth-largest city of Pakistan. But unfortunately, the high number of out-of-school children is extremely alarming, which require swift actions from the relevant stakeholders and the policymakers. This research has adopted mixed approach, i.e., quantitative as well as qualitative approach to achieve the research objectives. For quantitative analysis, a questionnaire is designed to collect data from a total of 350 primary (130 private schools and 220 public) schools of Peshawar. The qualitative analysis was carried out using interview method. During these interviews, a total of 20 experts and high-level experts in the sector of ICT and education were consulted. They were asked about their experience in the field.
During the study, it was learned that the Integration of ICT has a positive relationship with the Internal Factors (Learning Environment, Institutional Culture, Training Sessions and Strategies from School) in schools. On the other hand, results also show that the Integration of ICT has a negative relationship with the External Factors (Lack of Resources, Attitude of Policymakers, Inadequate Infrastructure). It was also learned during the thematic analysis of the interviews that the external factors must be tackled carefully in order to enable the schools in implementing the ICT-integrated programs for the students and teachers. To address the challenges, the government needs to allocate more resources for the primary education sector in order to revise the curriculum. Lastly, the relevant Education Departments need to implement regulatory principles so the education of the students improve significantly
