Asiana Banda

ICT integration in Zambian high school STEM education

By Asiana Banda

New Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have gained influence in the global development agenda in different sectors of society around the world. Zambia, like other developing countries, joined the global ICT movement by introducing a STEM-related course, Computer Studies (CS), in primary and secondary schools in 2013. By virtue of being the most referenced national document by STEM stakeholders, the high school CS curriculum document is the blueprint of the teaching, learning and implementation of ICTs in Zambian schools. However, since its inception, no known study has taken a holistic lens to examine the integration of ICTs in CS curriculum as it pertains to the context in which ICT is taught, the kinds of ICT tools integrated and the extent to which ICT tools are integrated in the CS document and in lesson plans developed by STEM student-teachers. Overall, the results revealed that (a) both the CS syllabus and STEM teachers’ lesson plans advance the integration of the “communication” aspect of ICT at the expense of the “information” and “technology” aspects, (b) the CS curriculum did not integrate the Web 2.0 communication and networking collaboration tools, the social media networks and the emerging 4IR technologies, and (c) the STEM student teachers integrated newer ICTs including smartphones, webcams, smartboards, word and presentation software, collaboration platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom to teach online, creating online quizzes with Kahoot, communicating with Gmail and social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facetime. These results have implications on which, how and when ICTs should be integrated in STEM teaching/learning so that they seamlessly sync with how users use ICTs in everyday social networking settings. This is critical because ICTs impact not only STEM education practices, but also how people live and work in this ICT-driven society. This chapter will be valuable as it will provide the missing baseline data about the status of ICT integration in STEM education in Zambia and beyond.