Abstract:
This study assessed computer literacy skills of academic staff of Nasarawa state university Keffi (NSUK) and University of Jos (UNIJOS). It sought to find out their computer literacy skills, the areas they use the skills, the methods as well as the effectiveness of these methods in acquiring the skills; and to determine the problems and strategies for enhancing the acquisition of the skills. An evaluative design was used for the study with a population of 1281 academic staff. A sample size of 128 (10%) of the population was used for the study. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire. In analyzing the data, percentages, mean and frequency tables were used. The findings revealed that staff have average level of computer literacy skills and use it only for typing/printing of lecture notes, computing of students’ results, surfing the Internet for information and sending e-mails; and that workshops, conferences, on the job training, attending IT programmes and teaching by friends are some of the available computer acquisition methods. However, inadequate funds, inadequate power supply, lack of government sponsorship, time constraints, irregular organization of IT programmes, inadequate Internet cafes, too much work load for academic staff and inadequate computer training centres were discovered to be militating factors. The followings strategies to overcome the problems were identified: Introduction of computer training allowances to the staff, government should sponsor staff for IT programmes, improvement in power supply, organization of seminars for computer awareness, government should acquire computers for staff, reduction of work load of staff, frequent organization of IT programmes for staff and that government should launch internet cafes on the universities’ campuses.
