Congratulations to Dr. S. B. Rahman for successfully defending his PhD thesis on: “Training needs of Agriculture Lecturers for Information and Communication Technology Skills enhancement in Public Universities in Southwestern, Nigeria” at the Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State on May 24, 2023.
The sample for his study was selected from lecturers of selected public universities in Southwestern (Ekiti, Oyo, and Osun States), Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was employed in selecting 250 respondents from whom primary data were collected for the research. The statistical tools used for
this study include descriptive (frequency distribution, percentage, mean, and Weighted Mean Score (WMS)) and inferential statistics such as Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC), and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to test the hypotheses of the study at p = 0.050.
The results showed that the mean age across the states was 45 years, 61.2 percent were male while majority (90%) of the respondents were married. The most ranked available ICT tools for teaching and learning were e-mail services (WMS = 1.53), computers (WMS = 1.22) and Public Address System (PAS) (WMS = 1.19) while the most frequently utilized ICT tool was computer (WMS = 4.19). Also, 54 percent of the respondents had favourable attitude towards the use of ICT across the States while inconsistent electricity supply (WMS = 2.44) and poor internet connectivity (WMS = 2.39) were the major constraints militating against the use of ICT for teaching and learning. Simple website design skills (WMS = 3.00) and software skills use (WMS = 2.93) were the major areas of need for ICT skills enhancement of the respondents. The PPMC analysis showed significant relationships between internet facilities (p = 0.042), PAS (p = 0.026), e-learning application (p = 0.029) and the training needs for ICT skills enhancement of the respondents. The result of ANOVA revealed that there was a significant difference in the training needs of the respondents for ICT skills enhancement between Oyo and Osun States (p = 0.006).
Conclusively, there were training gaps in skill enhancement for software skills, simple web design, online teaching and learning. It is recommended that comprehensive training programs should be instituted to enhance skills of agricultural lecturers in public universities in the study area. Also, the study recommended university management to provide adequate ICT tools and support to enable lecturers to fully utilize ICT tools in their teaching and research.