Perception and attitudes of private secondary school proprietors to the adoption of online classes amidst COVID-19 pandemic in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

COVID-19 and its attendant lockdown adversely affected the traditional face-to-face classroom activities in virtually all parts of the world, Nigeria inclusive. As a way out, online teaching became the vogue in many parts of the world. This study measured the perception and attitudes of private school proprietors to the adoption of online learning amidst COVID-19 in Ibadan, the capital city of Oyo State, Nigeria. To elicit information for the study, a purposive sample of 327 listed private secondary schools in Ibadan was used to select 180 of them for this study. A questionnaire was used for data collection and the responses were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).The study revealed that there is a low level of adoption of online learning by private school proprietors in the study( x =2.07) due to inadequate digital literacy skills for online learning and interaction with the students, paucity of ICT infrastructure, and the complexity of the learning environment under it. It was found that the proprietors under study had positive attitude towards online learning ( x =3.10). Computer exposure by these proprietors played a statistically significant role in their attitude. It is recommended that training and regular exposure to the benefit of online learning are necessary for proprietors and teachers‟ appreciation of online learning.