Leadership Challenges Faced By School Principals When Implementing Ict-Based Curriculum And Instructions In Secondary Schools In Elgeyo Marakwet County

Abstract

Implementation of ICT based curriculum that enhance teaching and learning using technology across all subject disciplines in secondary schools remain a challenge. Although the government has put measures, initiatives and investments to improve this excersie, most secondary schools continue to use traditional methods of teaching, which are against modern teaching and learning practices. Due to these backdrops, the purpose of this study was to investigate the challenges that secondary school principals face in implementing ICT-based curriculum and instruction in Elgeyo Marakwet County in Kenya. The specific objectives included: to establish the education technology leadership challenges school principals experience when implementing ICT based curriculum in secondary schools in Elgeyo Marakwet County; to determine the kind of transformational leadership challenges facing school principals when implementing ICT based curriculum in secondary schools in Elgeyo Marakwet County; to examine nature of Instructional Improvement Tech Leadership challenges school principals experience when implementing ICT based curriculum in secondary schools in Elgeyo Marakwet County and to establish the ICT change agility leadership challenges school principals face when implementing ICT based in secondary schools in Elgeyo Marakwet County. The study was guided by Open System Systems, Technology Acceptance Model and the Model of IT implementation process theories. An inductive research approach of quantitative and qualitative methods with a descriptive survey design was used. The target population was secondaery school principals from all 74 secondary schools in Elgeyo Marakwet County. The units of analysis were 74 secondary schools leading to a target population of 74 Principals. This was reduced to 63 secondary schools that allowed a reasonable number of schools in a qualitative study. Hence a sample size of 63 of accessible population was selected. The accessible study population of 63 secondary school Principals was adopted as the accessible population using Krejcie and Morgan (1970, Appendix VI) that gave a sample size of 63 participants. Stratified random sampling techniques to select secondary schools from which 63 principals were derived. The Likert Scale Questionnaire of secondary school principals was used in collecting data. Pilot study findings indicated feasibility of the actual study with changes and close monitoring, validity was high on existing theory and knowledge, measure of how measurement covers all aspects of the concept being measured nd how the result of the measures used in this study corresponded to other valid measures of the same concept. The reliability was confirmed on the consistency of results across time, across different observers, and across parts of the test itself. The data collected was organized and classified in particular order on completed questionnaires and incomplete questionnaires. The findings indicted there were leadership challenges experienced by secondary school principals in the implementation of ICT based curriculum in secondary schools in Elgeyo Marakwet Count. Thes leadership challenges included educational technology leadership, transformational leadership, and instructional improvement leadership and ICT change agility leadership. It was found out that school leadership has a key role on ICT implementation in teaching and learning however, the level of ICT based curriculum implementation is inadequate or lacking altogether. It was therefore concluded that lack of educational technology, transformational, instructional and ICT change agility leaderships that provide radmaps for the ICT based curriculum implementation in secondary schools was inadequate. It was therefore recommended that secondary school leaders must develop and practice adequately and effectively educational technology leadership, transformational leadership, instructional leadership and ICT change agility leadership to create environment that support implementation of ICT based curriculum in secondary schools.