The importance of school leaders for deploying and integrating ICT in schools: From the perspective of Catholic rural school leaders

In an era of unprecedented funding in education, a proportion of the billions of dollars being spent will influence the deployment and integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in schools. School leaders will be one of many roles within schools accountable for the effective and efficient use of ICT in these environments. This paper reports the interim findings of a study to help understand more about the role of leaders in primary and secondary rural Catholic schools for the deployment and integration of ICT. The study used an online survey of a sample of principals, assistant/associate principals and leaders/head teachers/coordinators who volunteered to participate and then followed up those who agreed to be interviewed to further investigate findings. Analysis used basic statistics and qualitative interpretation to increase understanding why all participants thought their role ranged from considerably to critically important for the integration of technology, but ranged from not important to critical importance for deployment