PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION COMPUTERIZATION PROGRAM IN POLILLO DISTRICT

This study identified the practices and challenges in the implementation of the Department of Education Computerization Program (DCP) in the district of Polillo during the SY 2017-2018. The respondents of the study were the teachers, school ICT coordinators and the school heads in Polillo District. Descriptive-survey method of research was used in this study, which helped to find out the significant difference between the teachers and school ICT coordinators’ practices, and the significant difference among the respondents’ challenges encountered in the implementation of the program. A survey questionnaire was the main data gathering instrument of this study. The data were properly consolidated, treated and analyzed using appropriate statistical tools. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents belonged to the ages ranging from 30-39 years old, mostly female, served under five years, with unfinished master’s degree and have attended about two to five ICT oriented seminars. Furthermore, the study revealed that teachers often practice the use of DCP in their preparation tasks and sometimes in their management tasks. School ICT coordinators often practice the use of DCP for both preparation and management tasks. While, school heads often practice the use of DCP in their financial resource management and other related administrative tasks, while they sometimes practice the use of DCP in human resource management. Generally, the respondents sometimes encountered challenges in the DCP in terms of personal, technical and infrastructural. The study further revealed that there is a significant difference between the level of practice of teachers and school ICT coordinators in terms of preparation and management. And the respondents’ challenges encountered have no significant difference. The results of this study were the basis for designing an action plan for effective implementation of DepEd Computerization Program.