ASSESSMENT OF THE USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT) IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN KATSINA STATE, NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1         Background to the Study

The use of ICT could be an effective tool in attaining any goal set by Tertiary Institutions, the Society and the Government. Many investigations and researches have revealed that ICT is an important fulcrum on which modern society revolves around. This mean it is an effective instrument in bringing change which could lead to faster advancement in every sector of human life, most especially if effectively and efficiently managed. Historically, when modern technology emerges first in other parts of the world including Africa and precisely Nigeria, traditional systems of instruction was common before the recent replacement with a new one that is ICT-based, some of the changes introduced were partly adopted while some were wholly adopted in schools, most especially in the developing countries, Nigeria inclusive. These adoptions or uses were visible in almost all levels of education system- pre-primary, primary, secondary, and Tertiary Institutions.

Institutional activities like record keeping, admission processing, students registration, teaching, learning, practical demonstrations, , assessments and so on could be achieved via the use of ICT. Therefore in trying to put into our knowledge how system of Nigeria‟s education looks like, it is classified into different levels mainly four or five viz pre-primary, primary, secondary (JSS and SSS) and tertiary levels (Adeyemi and Olaleye, 2010). In short, the system is designed as 6-3-3-4 system before it was recently changed to 1-6-3-3-4 system which made it five levels. In recent periods, the traditional methods were commonly employed such as chalkboard, human talks and poor quality print materials. But as time progresses, modern man understood the need to simplify and improve his life, these resulted in the design and implementation of the use

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of variety of machines that formed the basis of new process for passing information, of communications, of management and administration in education and in other areas as well. These led to the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) resources in tertiary institutions.

What is ICT? ICT refers to so many things but for the sake of simplicity and clarity in this research work, it refers to the integration of computing technology and information. Also, Mohanty and Vohra (2008) added broadly that ICT could also be defined as „„anything which allows us to get information, to communicate with each other, or to have an effect on the environment using electronic or digital equipment.‟‟ In the views of Asiabaka and Oku (n.d), the heart of the ICT revolution are the computers because they are fast information processing machines (IPM), configured to receive input in the form of information, systematically process the input and provide organized information that serves the needs of the user.

ASSESSMENT OF THE USE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT) IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN KATSINA STATE, NIGERIA