Challenges to the Implementation of ICT in Primary Education in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Education is a basic need but the quality of the delivery of education is not equally distributed amongst all its intended recipients. As countries embrace the Sustainable Development Goals, the movement towards achieving quality ‘Education for All’ has become challenged by financial resourcing, infrastructure deficits, and problems in communicating between key stakeholders. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been touted as a way to resolve issues of communication but literature has emerged that it in a classroom situation, it can be difficult to maintain the equipment. Issues around accessing human and physical resources for training so that the curriculum can be implemented also emerge as part of the literature. Papua New Guinea has been reforming its education sector since the implementation of a Tuition Fee Free policy in 2012. It has subsequently embarked on implementing standards-based education curriculum, of which ICT is a key component. Issues of finance, communication, and lack of human and technical resources have challenged implementation of the new curriculum. ICT has become an everyday part of life in PNG and is being utilised in the classroom, but the way in which professional development of current teaching stock occurs and the factors around who can and cannot use the technology are not known. This thesis argues that for quality education to occur, issues around communication must be mitigated by understanding and resolving issues around how education governance occurs, how professional development occurs and what the current problems around ICT use within the context of East New Britain Province.