Functional Status Of Ict Tools And Its Usage In Government Schools: A Rural-Urban Comparison In Telangana State

Abstract

The application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been rapidly increasing in all the sectors including the education system. There is deliberate need of technology integration in school education for new emerging societies to facilitate
significant learning needs for holistic development. This paper contributes in assessing  the availability and functional Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in government schools in rural and urban areas. In India, about 16.2 crore (64 percent)
students of classes I-X are studying in 11,35,957 government schools. But only one-third (34.1 percent) government schools are having computer facility. The availability of computers in Telangana State government schools is low (23 percent) compared to
National level (32 percent). This study has collected primary data from 72 government secondary schools in Warangal Rural and Urban districts of Telangana State. The data reveals that of the total sample schools 43 percent schools are not using computers and
chi-square test results (p>0.05) shows that there is no significant difference between rural and urban schools. Also, regarding other functional ICT devices like projectors, KYANs, printers, television, UPS it is found that there is no significant difference between
the schools of rural and urban area. Of the total sample schools, only less than one-third (29 percent) of the schools mentioned particular time slot for digital classes in their school time table. Overall, it is very disheartening to found that more than four-fifth (80
percent) schools had very poor performance in using ICT tools for teaching and learning