Headmasters and Information and Communication Technology: Approaches in Making the Connection

Secondary school principals, primary school headmasters and teachers are some of the stakeholders who are responsible for translating the government’s aspirations for ICT-driven engaged learning into viable classroom practices. Principals and headmasters have a significant influence on teachers’ use of ICT in teaching in schools. Principals and headmasters bear responsibility in developing approaches to ICT implementation that will encourage teachers to innovate their teaching and students to learn more productively. The approaches that principals and headmasters adopt need to encompass considerations such as how the technologies are to be used for educational purposes, what are some problems that teachers may encounter and how collectively these problems can be overcome. For the approaches to be viable and sustainable there is a requirement for supportive staff, both teaching and technical to be involved in these efforts. The purpose of this study is to investigate what approaches to ICT implementation are adopted by primary school headmasters in Brunei, and their levels of ICT adoption vis-à-vis teachers’ levels of ICT adoption and awareness of headmasters’ preferred approaches. Primarily quantitative techniques were used to collect and analyze the data collected from the two questionnaire surveys of Headmaster Questionnaire, HQ and Teacher Questionnaire, TQ.