Multidimensional design-reality gaps in ICT in education projects in the Samoan aidscape

During the last few decades, Samoa has received much aid to enhance the use of information, communication, and technology (ICT) in education. Yet, the inequality gap in digital education between the Global North and South remains wide, including in Samoa. This warrants further studies on ICT in education projects in recipient countries.This study examines the gap between ICT project design and the reality lived by schoolteachers in Samoa.Empirical data were collected primarily through informal conversations with current and former teachers and ICT service providers. Their stories supported direct observation of ICT at schools garnered through working as a lecturer at an academic institution in Samoa.I use the concept of aidscape, which reflects the multidimensional nature of aid landscape, to explore the reality gaps across dimensions of the everyday life of teachers and examines how these gaps are interrelated at multiple levels.The reality of teachers shows interlinking challenges to the use of ICT at schools; challenges of accessing equipment, school culture, user perception, high staff turnover, and labour emigration. Enhancing the use of ICT by teachers requires material, technical, financial, sociocultural, and emotional support simultaneously from various actors of aid who operate on different scales.Other challenges, including the high cost of technology and devices, the lack of funding for long‐term projects, the lack of ICT experts in the country, and poor connectivity, also contribute to less‐than‐satisfactory results of some ICT in education.The way forward lies in stronger coordination among donors and more effective collaboration among different ministries of the recipient government to develop a combined project team dedicated to ICT in education. This team could work to untangle interlinked issues and tackle challenges one by one to find feasible solutions at grassroots, which could be incorporated into viable national policies.