The Role of Teacher Agency: Challenges Implementing an ICT Initiative in Education in India
Glenda Stump (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Meera Chandran (Tata Institute of Social Sciences); Omar Balli (Tata Institute of Social Sciences); Punam Medh (Tata Institute of Social Sciences)
Abstract
The Connected Learning Initiative (CLIx) was an award-winning action research program for an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) project in education that was implemented in 461 state government schools across four states across India. The aim of the CLIx project was to introduce technology-based learning in state-run schools along with a student-centred pedagogy, which was counter to the more traditional pedagogies used in government schools in India. CLIx was envisioned at scale, aiming at students in higher grades - 8th, 9th, and 10th - and involved approximately 2000 teachers. Helmed by academics and experts in ICT in education, CLIx was supported by the state government in each implementation state. The case study examines the role that teacher agency can play in the implementation of an ICT innovation like CLIx. The narrative follows the dilemma of the protagonist, Gopika Jadav, one of the leads of CLIx whose personal details have been fictionalized to anonymize their identity. Jadav needed to provide data-supported evidence to state government officials demonstrating the centrality of teacher agency for successful implementation of CLIx, Phase 1. If she presented sufficiently convincing evidence to diminish state government concerns about teacher resistance, it was likely that the states would support the implementation of CLIx, Phase II, an expansion that would provide new technology and programs to additional schools. This was a challenging task for Jadav because teacher agency by itself does not lend itself to being measured directly. The state's prevailing attitudes towards teachers made the task of convincing government officials even more difficult. The case study urges the learner to examine the CLIx context along with the data provided and help Jadav build a compelling argument to convince state officials that teacher agency was an important criterion for scaling the CLIx intervention to additional schools. This case provides students with the opportunity to understand how the interpretation and analysis of data using different theoretical frameworks can offer insights into the role of factors such as teacher agency that promote or impede systemic change in the education sector in India and actions that serve as levers to bring about that change.
How to cite
Glenda Stump et al. (2024). The Role of Teacher Agency: Challenges Implementing an ICT Initiative in Education in India. Open Access Teaching Case Journal, 2(2). The Case Centre, reference 204856.