Weaknesses of ICT in Nigerian education

WEAKNESSES OF ICT IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION & PLANNING

• ·         Some lecturers hesitate to use ICT: even though ICT is a faster, better and more efficient way of life, it still remains new to some people, most lecturers might have been trained using the traditional method of face to face interaction/lecturing, so they may have also adopted that teaching technique and may have also gotten so used to it, so when ICT now comes into play, most lecturers might fear that it is something new and it may not be able to deliver the lecture the way they want, so they tend to stick with their normal method for some time, but after a couple trials, they also tend to migrate to the ICT side because they would realize that through ICT, they wouldn’t have to spend much time preparing lecture materials and ICT would be able to guarantee efficiency some other tasks they perform.
•     Not enough resources /computers for each student: resources such as computers and computer labs are not sufficient enough for admin and planning students, even though there are some, it can only go round when there are like 3 students to one computer and the whole effective learning process cannot be really achieved when these resources aren’t readily available.

• ·         Financial problems: even if the computers are finally made available for each student, there would be need for IT consultants and technicians to ensure the smooth running of the programs , so the university may need to employ the services of these IT consultants who will give instructions on the best way to use the computers to achieve the optimum goal of efficiency of education and also the dos and don’ts when using the computers, and also the services of technicians who would be in charge of fixing and setting up the computer systems when there is a failure. The school would also have to create budgets for more power supply to power up all the computers, a computer lab that would contain these computers and the students, teachers that would put the students through the whole computer process. All these things would cost money and they may also be extremely expensive and the school may not have enough funds to finance the whole project, so they just debunk the whole idea.

• ·         It reduces competency of lecturers and students: most lecturers and students tend to depend on computers solely to achieve any task, and by so doing they hardly use their cognitive section to do any task, that is they hardly do any critical thinking, rather administrators and planners tend to consult the internet and other sources for quick solutions to problems that may need critical thinking and end up doing task incompetently.

• ·         ICT operation requires computer literacy: ICT is not something that a person starts operating mysteriously, it takes gradual learning and practise to perfect it, now a major weakness in admin and planning is that not everybody knows how to operate a computer, so they are not able to use one when they see it except if they have knowledge in ICT.

• ·         ICT is used for teaching only some courses: some courses require practice for the learning to effectively take place, so in situations like that, ICT cannot come in.

• ·         Slow internet connectivity: sourcing for information from the world wide web, requires fast internet connection, but the university only made provisions for internet in the library at main camp library and even with the internet connection, many students and staffs are connected to the same server at the same time, that makes the connectivity so slow that, student can hardly get details on time.

• ·         Epileptic power supply in Nigeria, doesn’t allow the effective functioning of ICT, because most gadgets used in ICT are powered up by electricity and the electricity supply in Nigeria is really bad, so they can’t function properly.

• ·         Accumulated information that has been continually stored on the computer like students names, mat numbers, results and receipts of fees paid can be easily manipulated or  lost when a computer comes in contact with Viruses, Spam, Trojans, Hoaxes, Spyware and Adware.

• ·         Poor data systems and lack of compatibility

• ·         Lack of ICT friendly environment

• ·         No thoughts: Computers have no thoughts because they are machine and they are devoid of emotions. They have no feelings. Since, computers have no thoughts and feelings so they can't make judgement based on thoughts and feelings.

• ·         Increased moral degradation: ICT has brought about internet pornography, cyber bullying, scams and other anti-social behaviours and this issues are a worrying an emerging problems that continue to weaken efforts of the use of computers for educational purposes in educational administration and planning.