My seminar paper

Content type

User Generated

Uploaded By

Rzzne74

Pages

Rating

SEMINAR PAPER

FEDERAL COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (TECH.), UMUNZE, ANAMBRA STATE,

NIGERIA.

STATUS/CHALLENGES OF E-LEARNING IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the status of e-learning in Nigeria. It commences by

discussing the concepts and history of e-learning. The challenges of e-learning

such as inequality of access to technology itself by students, high cost of personal

computers and laptops, etc, were highlighted. Prospects of e-learning in Nigeria

were also discussed. Based on these, some public and private partnership such as

ones existing with AfriHub and Socket Works, and form a consortium to purchase

bandwidth among others. This paper concluded by discussing the challenges of e-

learning in Nigeria such as high cost of internet connectivity, telephobia, software

and license cost, high cost of personal computer, lack of maintenance and

technical support.

INTRODUCTION

Education is the key to development. Government at all levels allocate substantial

amount of the annual budget to education sector in order to justify the importance

of this sector in national development. Education is provided through formal and

informal means. In formal settings, conventional (face-to-face school instruction)

and distance education (offered with separation in terms of physical location of

instructors and students) have been used to provide educational opportunities to

recipients. E-learning though not new in Nigeria has been given much prominence

of recent times as it is in advanced countries of the world. Many Nigerians have

benefited through the open education (correspondence) Rapid Result College, and

Exam Success Correspondence College. The revised national policy on education

(Federal Republic of Nigeria, FRN 2004) stipulates that the detailed goals of

distance education should be to:

• Provide access to quality education and equity in educational opportunities

for those who otherwise would have been denied.

• Meet special needs of employers by mounting special certificate courses for

their employees at their work place.

• Encourage internalization especially of tertiary education curricula.

• Ameliorate the effect of internal and external brain drain in tertiary

institutions by utilizing Nigerian experts as teachers regardless of their

locations or places of work.

To achieve these goals, it is stated that the federal government of Nigeria shall

ensure that distance education programme are equivalent in structure and status

to those offered by face-to-face mode of instruction, and that the government shall

encourage and regulate distance education programme in Nigeria. It shall also

establish distance education advisory body to advise government on distance

education, promote distance education nationwide, liaise with media

establishments, encourage efforts and other non-governmental organizations that

make the provision of quality distance education possible, encourage participation

in distance education programme at all levels and strengthen the capacity of

existing institutions providing distance education. In this era of Information and

Communication Technology, with the associated e-resources, e-learning is now in

vogue.

CONCEPT AND ADVANTAGES OF E-LEARNING

Kieser, Keller, and Schmidt, (2006) defined e-learning as “web-delivered and/or

web-supported teaching and learning using computer, multimedia, and internet

technologies.” It can also be defined as a learning system based on formalized

teaching but with the help of electronic resources. Therefore, e-learners are those

students that participate in the e-learning process. The learning with the computer

means online knowledge acquisition through the internet or offline through CD-

ROM and so on. The online requires the use of browsers such as Internet Explorer

or Netscape Navigator. The convergence of the internet and learning, or internet-

End of Preview - Want to read all 14 pages?

Access Now

Unformatted Attachment Preview

SEMINAR PAPER FEDERAL COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (TECH.), UMUNZE, ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA. STATUS/CHALLENGES OF E-LEARNING IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES ABSTRACT This paper discusses the status of e-learning in Nigeria. It commences by discussing the concepts and history of e-learning. The challenges of e-learning such as inequality of access to technology itself by students, high cost of personal computers and laptops, etc, were highlighted. Prospects of e-learning in Nigeria were also discussed. Based on these, some public and private partnership such as ones existing with AfriHub and Socket Works, and form a consortium to purchase bandwidth among others. This paper concluded by discussing the challenges of elearning in Nigeria such as high cost of internet connectivity, telephobia, software and license cost, high cost of personal computer, lack of maintenance and technical support. INTRODUCTION Education is the key to development. Government at all levels allocate substantial amount of the annual budget to education sector in order to justify the importance of this sector in national development. Education is provided through formal and informal means. In formal settings, conventional (face-to-face school instruction) and distance education (offered with separation in terms of physical location of instructors and students) have been used to provide educational opportunities to recipients. E-learning though not new in Nigeria has been given much prominence of recent times as it is i ...
Purchase document to see full attachment