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Federal government
assistance for web-based secondary education under poor
socio-economic development conditions in Nigeria:
Geodemographic and qualitative analyses
Richard Ingwe1, Judith E. Otu2, S.
P. I. Agi3, Eja I. Eja4 and
J. K. Ukwayi5
1Centre
for Research and Action on Developing Locales, Regions and
the Environment (CRADLE), Calabar, Nigeria.
2Department
of Sociology, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria.
3Department
of Political Science, University of Calabar, Calabar,
Nigeria.
4Department
of Tourism and Hospitality Studies,
Cross River
University of Technology (CRUTECH), Calabar, Nigeria.
5Department
of Sociology, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
ingwe.richard@gmail.com
or
Cradle.Africa@gmail.com. Tel:
(+234) 8051740656.
Accepted
5 June, 2008 |
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Within barely 15 to 20 years, information and communication
technologies (ICTs)-driven new digital economy and high
competition for global market share has engendered hunger
for knowledge as one of the main drivers of economic
development factor for cities, states, nations and
organizations in advanced nations. For
Nigeria,
presenting scandalous poverty, afflicting 70 to 89% of its
mostly rural and digitally excluded people, the need for
building capacity in ICT is urgent and imperative. This
paper examines the problem of lopsidedness in web assistance
to secondary schools by Nigeria’s Federal Government through
the Schoolnet’s Diginet programme. Models for promoting
Internet use in Africa and Asia are presented. The method of
geodemographic analysis was used to highlight inequalities
in web assistance to Nigerian secondary (high) schools by
computing per capita web assistance for secondary schools in
Nigeria’s 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (Abuja).
The results show that the highest share of web assistance to
schools went to Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (Abuja),
with a per capita web assistance of 3.56 x 10-6.
The lowest web assistance shares were given to Kano and
Lagos with per capita web assistance of 4.26 x 10-7
and 4.44 x 10-7 respectively. The value
added by geodemographic analysis is demonstrated by
highlighting the lowest per capita shares for Kano and Lagos
highlighting interaction between high population sizes of
these two most populous states (Kano: 9,383,682 and Lagos:
9,013,534) compared to other Nigerian states. It is argued
that greater success in delivering social justice is
achievable by applying evidence-based policy derived from
geodemographic analysis in sharing web assistance that is
commensurate with the populations’ need. While the use of
population size is the starting point of this geodemographic
method, other demographic variables (school aged youth,
gender and so forth) may be used in further studies of this
and related subjects. Such a transparent method promises to
attract public-private partnership that Nigeria’s Federal
Government has been inviting to manage schools in the
country. Moreover, it avoids recurrent problems of
inequality in resource allocation that has perpetually
decimated Nigeria’s development programmes and processes.
Key
words:
Information and communication technologies (ICTs), internet,
high schools, geo-demographic analysis. |
