AN ASSESSMENT OF THE COMPUTER LITERACY LEVEL OF OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING STUDENTS IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

Nigeria has embraced the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode of education in
order to make education affordable and to reach the teaming population of qualified
citizens yearning to have quality education but are left out of it. Most universities in the
country run the single mode conventional system of education; some run the dual
mode while two institutions run the single mode distance education. The groundswell
of interest is how computers can best be used to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of the ODL system of education in the country. This led to the assessment
of the computer literacy level of the distance learning students who are the
beneficiaries of the ODL system in Lagos state. A sample of 858 ODL students from
University of Lagos, National Teachers Institute (NTI) and National Open University of
Nigeria (NOUN) were used for the study. A self- developed questionnaire, made up of
15 items was administered to the respondents. The data collected were used to answer
four research questions and test one hypothesis. It was found that 54.20% are
computer literate; there exists gender differences in the computer literacy with
23.78% female and 30.42% male. There are also age differences. Some of the
problems include lack of access to computers, inadequate electricity supply, slow
broadband and high cost of internet access. The research hypothesis that there is no
significant difference between the observed and the expected computer literacy level
of the ODL students in Lagos state was rejected. Based on the results some conclusions
and recommendations were made.