CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1Background to the Study
Over the centuries, even far back as the
ancient Greek and Roman times, the educational process has always
precluded the presence of the tutor. The content and learning systems
always went hand in hand with the teacher and the relationship that
ensued from this triangular structure has been argued to have
contributed, shaped and effected learning itself. And the educational
information, that is the teaching content was always designed with this
relationship in mind factoring in how it will bear upon the outcome of a
teaching process.
Even before secondary and university
levels of education, the orientation that learning always implicates the
tutor and a need to respect and rely on him or her is instilled in
children so that the teacher is the always the custodian of the
information system in Nigeria’s educational sector. He or she is
challenged with designing the teaching materials and structuring a
system of delivering it’s content to the students with their learning
habits in mind.
However, with the advent of information
technology (IT), the information system of every educational institution
in the country and the world at large has been affected deeply.
Primary, secondary and tertiary schools have been forced to change their
information systems after all the information technologies and their
gadgets. The universities have been most affected and with time the same
is happening to the secondary schools with equal speed. In the country
most Universities both government owned and privately owned have
installed the WiFi devices all over the school to give the students free
access to the internet. Most universities too have made it mandatory
for entry schools to have a laptop computer and /or its equivalent.
Against this background, we set out to study the effects of information
system on Nigerian education.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The introduction of information
technology and its application to education in Nigerian has offset the
information system and reshaped it. In itself it is a welcome
development as educational materials can be got online without the long
process of looking for a tutor and enrolling into a school. Serious
students can now use Google’s user friendly information system to access
and download lesson content from the internet.
However, with time we see that the
present information system doesn’t affect the education in Nigeria
positively. There are also growing concerns in its implications. This is
what calls for a deep study which before now hasn’t been carried out to
find the effects of Information system on Nigerian education.
1.3 Research Questions
The following questions have guided this research work:
In what ways does information systems affect education generally and Nigerian education specifically
To what extend does it affect it negatively.
What are the legal policies to be made in order to combat those negative implications.
1.4. Objectives of the Study
The purpose of this research work is to
enquire into the effects of information systems and identify the various
ways it affects Nigerian education by finding out the various ways the
information system is used by both teachers and students the education
that has gone into the use to avoid any abuse and it’s encroaching into
the proper educational process.
To achieve this singular, yet multi purposed research, the following objectives are to be reached:
- To do a clear reading of the information system of the education
sector and delineate how it relates with the general mission and vision
of the school.
- Study the different common effects of information system on education especially at the tertiary level.
1.5 Significance of the Study
This research work hopes to throw light
on the effects of information system on education in Nigeria and give
educationists in universities draw up a better information system for
the school. Coordinate the use and availability of hard and online
materials in the schools. The institutions that havent had a definite
information system designed can work after the present study in making
and avoiding any issue that might arise in terms of copyright issues in
case of IT based information system.
1.6 Research Hypothesis
The assumption guiding this present
research work is that the information system adopted by every institute
have effects on the educational process of both students and teachers.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The research will focus more on tertiary
institutions as they are the ones that usually use an organized system
of information compartment. The universities that will be used as case
studies will be a university, a polytechnic and a college of education
to cover all section of information organization types. The different
effects are going to be organized and studied between the positive and
negatives effects.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
The only limitation met by this research
is that of time to fully do justice to the literature available for
reading and reviewing. Another apart from the time factor is that of
space.
1.9 Definition of Terms
Information System
This is an organized system of creating,
saving, processing and storing information by an organization and also
the way this information is shared and contributed among a particular
network of users.