THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEACHERS’ ICT COMPETENCY AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN EAST AKIM MUNICIPALITY

ABSTRACT

Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s) are changing the way people share, use, and process information . Overtime, students’ academic performance had been used to determine excellence in teacher teaching. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between teachers’ICT competency and students’ performance in ICT in East Akim Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana. It also  sought to  find  out  whether availability of ICT  resources have influence on students’ performance. In the study, 19 public Junior High Schools were  sampled  from 67  schools. Questionnaire  was  employed  for data  collection from the totalsample of 322 students and 19 teachers of ICT. Descriptive research design  was  selected  for  quantitative  research  approach.  The  findings  on  the academic performance of students revealed that only 7(2.2%) out of 322 students and 9(2.8%) had a mark above 80 for term 1 and term 2 respectively. Majority of the  students  also  rated  themselves  as  either  poor  or  very  poor  in  performing computer related tasks.  Most students’ performance in both practical and end of term examination were low due to the unavailability of computers in their schools. This  reflected  in  a  positive  linear  relationship  between  the  availability  of  ICT resources (computers) and students’ academic performance. The null hypothesis H0was rejected at 0.05 level of significance with p = 0.032. The level of teachers’ICT competence on the six UNESCO standards generally recorded a low mean value of 3.77.   It  was  recommended  that  teachers  who  do  not  have  the  required  ICT qualification and practical skills in ICT usage should seek training to enable them competently and confidently use them in teaching the subject.