Teachers’ ICT competencies and the policy–practice gap in Ghanaian schools

This study examines teachers’ ICT competencies in ICT-integrated education in Ghana, focusing on the implementation ecology shaping everyday school practice in a semi-urban context. Specifically, moving beyond individual-level explanations, this study conceptualizes ICT competency development as an outcome of interrelated infrastructure, training and institutional arrangements across school and municipal levels. Using an exploratory mixed-methods design, the study draws on a baseline survey of 213 teachers across 16 public schools, complemented by semi-structured interviews and observations during two initial training sessions in Koforidua, Ghana. The findings indicate that teachers generally reported limited ICT competencies despite positive beliefs toward ICT use. Key impediments include insufficient and dysfunctional ICT materials, limited opportunities for sustained hands-on professional learning, and institutional disparities, particularly between the Ghanaian Education Service and the Ghanaian Technical and Vocational Education and Training Service, which illustrated uneven access to ICT resources within the study setting. This study shows that policy-practice gaps stem from uneven implementation conditions rather than individual deficits alone. The findings offer insights for comparable resource-constrained settings and point to context-responsive policy design, including regular baseline assessments of teachers’ ICT competencies, more practice-oriented professional learning arrangements, and stronger coordination mechanisms linking national policy design to school- and municipal-level implementation.