Mariam Tartarashvili
Title: ICT in Education: “The Context-Specific Characteristics and Challenges for developing Countries based on the Example of Georgia”
Supervisor: Dr. Margit Kirs
Opponent: Olga Mikheeva, MA
Defense: 9 June 2017
Abstract: Over the past few years, information and communication technologies have become the powerful tool in different fields. Education is one of the areas experiencing paradigm shifts in teaching and learning processes by integrating ICT in the system. It creates the new learning environment, which leads to change in roles of both educators and learners. Considering the fact that Georgia is still in the process of implementing ICT tools in education, it is crucially important to address the issue of perceptions of different counterparts of the system and identify the barriers and challenges that Georgia is facing when integrating an innovative tool into primary and secondary education. Georgia as a developing country has a huge potential to use ICT to improve the overall educational performance. The study uses the SCOT theory for identifying the challenges and different social actors responsible for shaping the educational system in Georgia. According to the findings, ICT integration in primary and secondary education is perceived to be highly effective by educators and policymakers. However, some of the teachers are unable to make an effective use of the tools either due to lack of adequate resources, proper infrastructure or lack of required competencies. The study has attempted to make the substantial contribution to existing literature to answer research questions and highlight research areas needing further exploration.
Keywords: ICT, Innovation, Primary and secondary education, Georgia.
