DIGITALIZATION OF UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT FOR EMPOWERMENT IN THE ERA OF THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the digitalization of university management for empowerment in the era of the covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Two research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 252 lecturers from the Department of Educational Management in four public and private universities in Anambra State. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire which was developed by the researchers. The questionnaire was validated by three experts in the Faculty of Education in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The reliability of the instrument was determined through a pilot test. The application of the Cronbach Alpha Method on the data collected through the pilot test yielded coefficient values of 0.88 and 0.86 for clusters A and B respectively with an overall reliability co-efficient of 0.87. Mean, standard deviation and t-test were used to analyze data collected for the study. Findings revealed that the challenges hindering the digitalization of university management for empowerment in the covid-19 era include poor leadership, lack of government commitment to full digitalization of universities, poor funding, lack of ICT skilled personnel, poor collaboration between school and industry among others. Findings revealed that the establishment of ICT innovation hubs across all publicly and privately owned universities in Nigeria and engaging industry experts in the development of ICT frameworks for university management among others were some strategies for digitalizing university management for empowerment in the era of the covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Based on these findings, the researchers recommended that university should collaborate with ICT industry specialists in the integration of emerging technologies that would improve the management capacity of university staff and as well serve as a source of empowerment for students in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic.