From Policy Documents to Daily Practice: Administrators’ Perspectives on Implementing Educational Technologies in Pakistan

Abstract

Policymaking in educational technology today is more focused on digital transformation, innovation, and efficiency; although the directives of policies are translated into the organizational practice, the latter is still unequal. This research investigates the views of educational administrators on the adoption of educational technologies in Pakistani education system schools and colleges with respect to policy document interpretation, negotiation and implementation in day to day administration and teaching situations. The research problem is a typical gap between the intentions on policies and their real practice in institutions. The main aim of the research was to understand the experience, interpretations, and difficulties of administrations to operationalize technology related policies. A qualitative research design was used whereby semi-structured interviews with public and private institutions administrators were conducted in order to gather data. The research presupposed that institutional capacity, leadership discretion and contextual constraints influence policy enactment, and the boundary conditions were introduced in terms of infrastructure, professional growth and accountability mechanisms. Results have shown that administrators tend to change, redefine, or choose not to follow policy directives as they do not fit the local realities leading to partial and imbalanced technology adoption. The results are not only in line with the international research on policy enactment but also provide context-specific results in Pakistan. The paper has found that administrators have a monumental negotiative role in mediating policy hopes and daily education exercise.