APPRAISAL OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS EDUCATION PROGRAMME

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Business Education is a phase of education, which is aimed at developing business competencies in individuals at the tertiary level of education that will enable them to be gainfully employed and fit into the world of work as professionals. Based on this, Aina (2002) enumerated some major goals of Business Education. Among which are to enable students to: acquire skills and competencies required for the performance of basic business jobs that is, take simple administrative decisions and deal with correspondence; apply the various business concepts acquire in class to real life situations, and play a productive role in a free enterprise economy. We live in a world where change is phenomenal and the society is dynamic and changing at a very fast rate. Therefore, if the business education graduates are to be relevant in the society, there is need for them to move and change along with the society in terms of the skills and knowledge acquired by them. The introduction of modern Information Technology has led to what is called globalization, which refers to the increasing integration of the economies around the world. According to Galbraith (1997) globalization on its own has generated both great hopes and great fears and is therefore, seen by different schools of thought as symbol of either all that is good or all that is bad in the modern society. Whichever way Information Technology is viewed by individuals, it cannot erase its significance and contributions to the world at large.