Barriers to the Introduction of ICT into Education in Developing Countries: The Example of Bangladesh

Within a very few years, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has turned out to be an effective educational technology which promotes some dramatic changes in teaching and learning processes. Technologies allow students to work more productively than in the past, but the teacher's role in technology-rich classrooms is more demanding than ever (Keengwe, Onchwari et al. 2008). ICT has the potential to transform the nature of education (improving teachers' design work, enhancing the roles of students and teachers in the learning process and helping to create a collaborative learning environment, etc). Although ICT has the potential to improve the educational system to a great extent, developing countries are far from reaping these benefits because of certain barriers. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of international articles relating to barriers encountered when introducing ICT into classrooms. This review will help identify the factors that influence teachers' decisions whether or not to implement ICT in teaching-learning situations. Connections will be made with existing literature to explore possible barriers for introducing ICT into education in Bangladesh. Further, this paper also offers a number of recommendations to reduce these barriers and maximize the beneficial use of ICT on education. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 2 footnotes.)