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.