Attitudes and challenges toward the use of ICT skills: an assessment of ICT skills among university lecturers and students in Afghanistan

Abstract

Information and communication technology (ICT) play a vital role in the sustainable development and economic growth of a country, as well as it supports the learning and teaching process approaches effectively. In Afghanistan, the level of student and lecturers’ understanding of the ICT skills tools is almost at its preliminary stages. In addition, enough studies have not been conducted in the field of information and communication technologies. The purpose of the current descriptive study is to find out students’ ICT skills and the challenge swhich students and lecturers encounter toward integrating ICT in education at public universities of Afghanistan and the lecturers, as well. The data regarding the usage of ICT skills in learning practices have been collected through two distinct questionnaires which involved 317 students and 84 lecturers from the four public universities in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul. The data analysis was performed with SPSS software to describe and summarize the data statistically. The outcomes indicate that students and lecturers are not much skilled in ICT, other than word processing programs and multimedia presentations. Moreover, lack of ICT infrastructure for students and enough insufficient technical training as challenges toward are challenging the higher education institutions, as well as the gender differences in terms of ICT skills, are identified.The study recommends the government and higher education authorities in Afghanistan to take practical and immediate actions for enhancing technical training and providing ICT infrastructures to students and lecturers at these universities. Theseinfrastructures should be intended to support the students and lecturers for utilizing the ICT widely. It should enhance students’ learning abilities.