Impediments to ICT-led Development in Nigeria: the Case of ICT ‘Illiteracy’ in Universities
Date
2010
Authors
Duze, Chinelo O.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Journals Online
Abstract
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can play a major role in development.
Accordingly, nations and institutions are making enormous efforts to promote their utilisation. In many of
these efforts, it is taken for granted that once ICT facilities are acquired, they will be put to uses that are
crucially relevant to development. This paper reports the findings of a study that brought this presumption to
question, taking the case of knowledge and use of these technologies among 5118 students and 1509 academic
staff of 97 universities in Nigeria. It reports that majority of the respondents and, by inference, people in
Nigeria do not have the ICT competence required to harness the benefits that the technologies offer. Therefore,
it is recommended that ICT and development policy makers at all levels in the country put the development of
ICT competence at the centre of efforts to promote ICT-led development.
Description
Keywords
Information Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), Digital divide, Total Cost of Owning ICT (TCO)