ABSTRACT

The study assessed ownership and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by professionals in Michael Gkpara University of Agriculture Umudike. Specifically, the study determined the personal/Socio-economic characteristics of the professionals under study, ascertained the level of ownership ofICT facilities to the professionals, assessed their ■ perception towards the use of ICTs, determined the level of usage of ICTs by the professionals and identified the constraints to the use ofICTs by the professionals. The study had three hypotheses. Structured questionnaire was used to obtain primary data from one hundred and forty respondents, randomly selected from seven different professions (Technological, Lecturing, Accounting, Technical, Medical, Teaching, and Administration) in MOUAU. Frequencies, mean, percentages and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMCC) statistic were used to analyze the data. About 67.1% of the professionals sampled were males. The sampled professionals had a mean age of 45 years. Majority (82.1 %) ofthe professionals were married. The mean household size ofthe sampled professionals was 5 members. About 36.45% of the professionals sampled had Ph.D qualification. The mean working experience ofthe sampled professionals was 10 years. The mean monthly income ofthe professionals under study was two hundred and seven thousand, six hundred and forty-three naira (N 207,643). The professionals sampled in MOUAU owned and readily accessed GSM (98.6%), Television (94.3%), radio (87.9%), E-mail (82.9%), newspapers (80%) and computers (78.6%) while they did not own nor accessed mobile cinema and telephone (land line). They had a perception score of 4.37 which means that they have positive perception towards the use ofICTs. The respondents had a utility score of 1.35 implying that in total, they utilized the ICT facilities which was available to them to a low extent. The sampled professionals had 84.3% of them voting unstable/unreliable electric power supply as their major constraint followed by very limited access to internet (77;9%) which means that if these txyo major constraints are improved positively, there will be positive improvement in their use ofICTs. Only sex (X2), level offormal education (X5) and income level (Xs) ofthe professionals would affect their use ofthe facilities amongst all the other personal/socio-economic characteristics. Ownership of ICT facilities by the professionals would positively affect their use ofthe facilities and that their perception has nothing to do with ICT usage. From the findings, we therefore recommend that the professionals should be encouraged to acquire more ICT education so as to boost their level of use of ICTs and more workshops/seminars should be organized to train the professionals and advise them so as to motivate/boost their interest to use ICTs which will increase the efficiency ofthe work ofthe professionals since they could afford them, readily owned them and their perception towards the use of ICTs would not affect their use of the facilities. Steady power supply should be provided in MOUAU so as to increase the level of use ofthe facilities by the professionals. Effective and efficient internet service should be made available for the professionals in MOUAU.