ICT use among the Students of Arts and Science Remote Colleges in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

The Government of Tamil Nadu is implementing the scheme of distributing free laptop computers for students studying government school and colleges in 2011.Atleast 37.88 lakh students have benifitted from the government project so for.It is useful to develop computer knowledge for poor students and enable to know about ICT. Although higher education policy acknowledges the value of developing pedagogy with the aid of information and communication technology (ICT) technologies and processes, this need has not been resolved in action. In this setting, SPACE carried out a study among 200 students chosen by way of convenience sampling from five districts of Tamil Nadu to understand how undergraduate students in the arts and science colleges relate to modern ICTs, specifically the Internet. The results show a wide gap between boys and girls in their use of the Internet through all socio-economic classes. Most schools do not provide students with free Internet access. Link issues are more strongly experienced by girls who are discouraged by social norms from entering browsing centers. Fewer girls than boys felt confident about using the Internet. The study suggests the need to build a teaching and learning atmosphere in colleges that takes advantage of the opportunities opened up by the World Wide Web, to enable students and teachers to make use of it, and to ensure that students have access to ICT on their campus.