Abstract:

The article publishes qualitative study results, based on a descriptive paradigm, carried out with 12th-grade students in Mozambique, ten districts, and an equal number of schools. From which one class in each school was selected. Among several questions, the study wanted to know if the students used the Internet and its purpose. For data collection, questionnaires were given to students, followed by interviews with school principals and their pedagogical directors. To deploy data collection tools, collaborators were involved, who administered 500 self-administered questionnaires in paper format, and 416 answered returned by postal mail. The choice of this type of questionnaire was because there is no ICT present in rural areas and the fear of digital illiteracy among the students.

For the interaction with these collaborators, electronic mail and telephones were used; collaborators in this study refers to the people who performed the fieldwork. Their involvement in the research was due to the researcher's difficulty to be present in these districts, given the country's size, logistics, and lack of available time.

For the analysis of data from these questionnaires, SPSS statistical software was used. The content analysis adapted from the phases proposed by Laurence Bardin (2018) was used to analyze data from the interviews.

The study results indicated that pupils did not use the Internet in an educational context, probably due to political and structural issues that do not make the Internet services available in schools. Also, the low purchasing power of households does not permit them to acquire such technologies. Because of the lack of Internet, rural students have limited research capabilities to widen their knowledge and little or nonexistent interaction with the world. These results are consistent with other studies related to access to Technologies and the Internet in Mozambique.

Keywords:

Education, Student, Internet, Rural Áreas, Information Comunication Technology.