Technology Adoption in Primary Schools: Perspectives from Rural Bangladesh

Abstract

The digitalization of education from the early stages has been recognized by educationalists from across the world. Bangladesh, with the vision of digitalization in every sector, has been showing improvements in incorporating technology into education. However, the primary school level has not been able to keep pace with the implementation of basic technology, for example, computers, projectors, sound systems, etc., as much as the higher levels of education. Rural schools are being deprived of the facilities that created an invisible disparity between the urban and rural schools. This research aimed to investigate the factors that restrict technology adoption in rural schools, followed by suggested sustainable solutions for optimal results from teachers’ and administrators’ perspectives in the Bangladeshi context. This study followed a qualitative approach with eight different rural schools, involving fourteen individual interviews and one focus group discussion to gather data on the dynamics in participants’ experiences, perceptions, and suggestions. Strategic sampling was used to ensure reliability. Among the fourteen participants, five were school administrators and nine were teachers. The focus group involved three teachers to take part in a discussion. Data were analyzed thematically. The findings show that technology adoption will benefit the educational environment with teachers’ hands-on training, availability of technological equipment, funding from the government, and eliminating socio-economic barriers to provide an equal and harmonized educational environment for both urban and rural primary schools. The study recommends proper teacher training, sufficient funding for the required equipment, a distributed supply of technological support, and the recognition of other socio-economic problems and their solutions.