Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to identify strategies that will enhance the accessibility and use of Information and Communication Technologies in Colleges of Education in Bayelsa state. To elicit the pertinent information for the purpose of the study, five research questions were asked on the strategies to facilitate improved funding for ICTs, management strategies that should be used to enhance accessibility and use of ICT tools and facilities, strategies that should be used to promote curriculum development and design, personnel development strategies that should be used in enhancing accessibility and use of ICT tools and facilities and partnership support strategies that should be used to enhance the use and access of ICT tools and facilities. Five null hypotheses were also formulated. A structured questionnaire was developed and used for collecting the study’s data. The questionnaire was face validated by three experts. The study’s data was collected from 450 respondents made up of staff and students in Colleges of Education in Bayelsa state. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and also using the SPSS. The five null hypotheses were tested with the t-test and ANOVA statistics at .05 level of significance. The study found that the problems of inadequate funding of ICT, poor management of ICT tools, poor curriculum development and design, lack of personnel in the handling the ICT tools and poor partnership support from NGOs and private sectors are cogent factors which this study investigated on. The researcher recommends that, the National Commission of Colleges of Education should as a matter of urgency provide ICT infrastructure to Colleges of Education in Bayelsa state, the NCCE should constantly review the curriculum of ICT to include in addition to access and use of ICT packages, networking, Internet installation, Database management and so on, given the present low accessibility and use of ICT in Colleges of Education, the administration of Colleges of Education should encourage private sector funding of ICT tools and facilities by appealing to companies, private schools that are the direct beneficiaries of Colleges of Education to make donations to the Colleges of Education. The researcher also concludes that there is need to develop strategies that enhance the accessibility and use of ICT in administration and teaching/learning in Colleges of Education in Bayelsa state.
