The role of school management teams (SMTs) in information communication technology (ICT) integration in the curricula at public schools in Cape Town

Abstract

A substantial percentage of SMTs held adequate knowledge about ICT integration at their schools but lacked the required leadership skills to influence the overall integration into the curriculum at their respective schools. Alternatively, SMT members' perceptions had a significant impact to the extent in which they integrated ICT at their schools, which might hinder them from overall success in integrating ICT. This study investigated the leadership role SMTs have in ICT integration into the curriculum at their schools. Furthermore, the study attempted to investigate the key factors that could affect SMTs leadership role at their respective schools. By, analysing the perceived perceptions on ICT and their specific member roles at the school. The framework of Day and Sammons (2013) underpin this study. The research sample comprised of ten SMT members from High schools in the Metro East District in the Western Cape. The study used the following research instruments for data collection namely: 1. Focus group discussions and 2. Individual semi-structured interviews. An interview schedule was employed to guide discussions and interviews on specific dates that were made available by SMT members at the two schools. The discussions and interviews were done by all SMT members irrespective of their specific role at the school to gain a collective view of ICT integration at their school. Qualitative methods were employed in this study to analyse the data to explore the perceptions of SMT members towards ICT integration.

The analysis of the data showed that SMT members who participated in this study have derived perceptions about ICT both positive and negative due to individual experiences when using ICT at their schools. SMT members often felt that the role of ICT integration should be delegated amongst themselves and or outsourced completely for those members who are technologically challenged. However, in school B, SMT members felt very positive about ICT integration and its endless benefits into their curriculum. Thus, having a more positive perception about ICT than school A. In terms of age, the younger SMT members appeared to be more knowledgeable about ICT than their older counterparts. With relevance to ICT integration, the SMT members seemed to demonstrate a better understanding of ICT terms than the actual implementation of ICT into the curriculum. Thus, labelling ICT as a “tool.” However, based on the data collected, it was found that differences between SMT members were only significant in terms of integration, curriculum practices and implementation. This study offers several recommendations for the SMT members to consider as well as suggest ways, which could be used to integrate ICT into their curriculum.