ICT Challenges in education: Reflections from a developing country: Iran, with reference to the statistics from computer science students

In this paper, factors affecting the development and effectiveness of ICT in Iran’s educational system, based on survey results from a group of computer engineering colleagues are discussed. Participants in the study were 22 students studying in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, selected through a voluntary basis from a pool of students who had taken at least one web-based class at the university and were also familiar with Social Informatics, using a stratified sampling technique. The sample contained 20 to 23 years old male and female students. The emerged themes from the answers to questionnaires are categorized into five main titles: Hardware infrastructures, language proficiency and native language content, cultural attitude and tendency, application of ICT in primary and secondary schools, and Learning effectiveness in virtual classes. These main categories are discussed through the rest of the paper in addition to a brief review of Iran’s current educational system.