The impact of ICT on students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

This dissertation is on the impact of Information and Communication Technology on students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Tanzania. The study involved 9 schools (i.e. Canossa girls, Mtakuja, Feza girls, Boko, Perfect Vision, Feza boys, Tegeta, Bunju A, and Makongo) from Kinondoni Municipal in Dar es Salaam. The literature review used in the study includes questionnaires to students and interview to teachers. The schools were selected randomly, the students and teachers at school depend on their availability but the student must have completed form two national examinations.The form two examination results were considered for the student performance. The descriptive analysis includes school, school category, age, sex, schools with ICT, schools without ICT, learning tools, teaching tools, availability of ICT Infrastructures and student academic performance. The schools categorized into two; Schools with ICT and schools without ICT, the chi-square test was used to develop the prediction model; the binary logistic regression analysis was used. The study revealed analytically that, there is a significant association between Information and Communication Technology learning methods and the academic performance of students in secondary schools in Tanzania. There is a significant association between Information and Communication Technology teaching tools and the academic performance of students in secondary schools in Tanzania and there is a significant association between the availability of Information and Communication Technology infrastructures and the academic performance of students of secondary schools in Tanzania. Considering the binary logistic regression, it shows that, some of schools had ICT laboratories and connected to internet services but their performance are still poor. The study also revealed that, the number of problems included the lack of Information and Communication Technology infrastructures, Information and Communication Technology tools and poor/old teaching and learning tools are used in many schools in Tanzania. However, based on the field studies, the study also showed that, in Tanzania students do not know the importance of Information and Communication Technology learning tools such as internet academically, instead, they use internet for getting irrelevant information which are not helping them in their studies. It also shows that, most teachers are not seriously using internet for academic purposes instead, they use it mostly for chatting with friends. The study proposed that, the government of Tanzania should construct ICT infrastructures and ICT learning and teaching tools in all schools, and, it should introduce strategies in educating students and teachers to understand the capability of ICC in education.