School Management in 21st Century Using ICT: Challenges and the Way Forward

Stephen C. Nwali, John. O. Ugah

Abstract: This paper discusses the use of information and communication technology in managing schools and its attendant benefits. It particularly seeks to find out how far ICT has helped to bring about enhancement in school management in our present age. It also seeks to discover the basic challenges that school managers are facing currently in deploying ICT for school management. Our motivation for this paper is the fact that irrespective of the enormous benefits that ICT offers in service delivery, many schools seem not to be deploying ICT in school management. Those that are using ICT in school management currently seem to be facing some challenges that needed to be addressed. This paper therefore highlights the challenges facing the use of ICT in school management in this 21st century and consequently recommends ways forward by outlining and discusses in details mapping solutions that serves as panacea to those highlighted challenges facing school managers and administrators in the use of ICT in school administration. The implementation of the recommended solutions will have no doubt boost the confidence of the present day and would-be school managers in deploying ICT in their schools. It is worthy of note that school management using ICT has enormous impacts on nation building and development. It would help enforce electronic record keeping which cannot easily be lost and can be viewed as authentic registers or instruments of official accounts of any transaction performed in schools.

Keywords: School, Administration, ICT, Challenges, Solution