CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The fact that the world cannot do without technology cannot be over-emphasized. Researches has proven that the world is under the pressure of acquiring practical skills that would be enforced by youths in other to minimize, if not eradicating poverty, increase and maintain economic development and minimize insurgency rates. The importance of technology and vocational education in acquiring sustainable development in Nigeria to be specific and the world at large cannot be overemphasized. Technology and vocational education equips youths on practical skills in different occupations to the height that the society would gain when these skills are implemented on productive ventures. These productive ventures in consequence, lead to growth and economic benefits, and sustained development. Technology and Vocational Education boosts the acquisition of skills and provides the pedestal for advancing and elevating the country.
in the present years, as a result of technological innovation, the use of information has inflated in industry. Information processing and electrical communication using computers have proliferated massively, as office computers and word-processors are initiated at offices and industrial robotics at factories. In this era, which is set apart by the significance of knowledge and computer, vocational education and training schools are answerable for the provision of professional middle-level personnels mostly needed in industrial and service sectors. As such, the provision of high quality computer and education in today’s vocational education and training schools is vital. Globally, all economically advanced democracies hold in high esteem on the quality of their vocational education and training (VET).
Vocational education, also called career and technical education (CTE), equips learners for future jobs that are centered on manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic and totally related to a specific trade, occupation or vocation, therefore the term, in which the learner participates. It is sometimes cited to as technical education, as the learner directly achieves mastery in a defined group of techniques or technology. VET has become a major policy problem as its paramount to national economic performance has become generally known and accepted. In the face of rapid technological advance, economic globalization and the intensification of competition both within developed and developing countries, it is now vividly clear that human resources are the major when it comes to continuing wealth in the advanced economies. It is also sound to most government, although to some maybe more than the other that a maximum diffusion of education and training are vital necessity for a healthy democracy and for maintaining a level of social coherence and harmony in swift changing and increasing pluralistic societies (Ruberti, 1993). Irrespective of the arrival of a common agenda for VET using computer across numerous countries, it is progressively acknowledged that policy in practice differs significantly based on national context. As might be expected, it is one thing to develop grand visions of the vocation education and training society within official policy documents, turning such visions into reality usually turns out to be rather more problematic. This is applied to the particular goals, cultural policies and initiatives that are being chased and executed, the wider institutional structure within which they take place, and the roles played by key actors such as state, employers and trade unions etc. By the same token, some countries may not only gain from more advantegeous circumstances for making progress towards the goal of vocational education and training but may already be some way further down this road than others with the help of information and communication technology (ICT).
1.2 Problem of the study
The consistent use of computers helps students gain computer literacy, the rate at which it’s used may point how well equipped the present generation of students will be, to enter a workforce where computer literacy is in demand. In consequence, national cultures have diverse effect on student’s attitudes and usage. Students have unique experiences of the computer, have different attitudes toward the computer, and also hold different judgements on how the computer will impact society at large and their own lives and use it themselves uniquely. While educators seem to fuse and put into effect computer games in VET having educational characteristics within educational context, roughly half of the students do not have any possibility in order to use computers. The amount of computers installed in the schools is defective, bearing in mind access to computers; one computer is shared on average by as many as 50 students. Budgets for computers at vocational education and training schools are usually allocated by the administrative district government, in which the manufacturers and types of hardware and software to be bought are determined and imported. A lot of hardware manufacturers and software developers compete with one another, leading to incompatibility, which is a major problem. This tread hinders the probing of the full potential of computers and the length to which they can impact and influence learning. To be economically feasible and reach economies of scale, software must be “tamed” and modified to the ongoing needs of schools and teachers, and must be suitable within the limitations of existing curricula and subject matter fragmentation.
1.3 Research Objectives
The study will focus on analysing the use of technology in vocational education in Nigeria. Specific objectives include;
- Impact of Technology in vocational education on students
- The role of technology in vocational training
- To examine how lack of funding affects technology in vocational education in Nigeria.
1.4 Research questions
- What are the impacts of Technology in vocational education on students?
- What is the role of technology in vocational training?
- How has lack of funding affected technology in vocational education in Nigeria?
1..5 Research hypothesis
H01: The impacts of Technology in vocational education on students is significant.
H02: Lack of funding has negatively affected technology in vocational education in Nigeria.
1.6 Significance of the study
Technology and Vocational Education (TVE) is the education that makes both individual and nation to be self-reliant. Through TVE, resources (human and material) have been redirected for industrial and technological growth and development as well as economic and social empowerment.
This research will go a long way in meeting the society’s needs for workers; (ii) increasing individual career options; (iii) lending intelligibility to general education; and (iv) serving as a motivation force to enhance all types of learning. The study will also serve as a guide to researchers interested in carrying further research on the topic.
1.7 Scope of the study
The study centers on the use of technology in vocational education in Nigeria. Respondents used for the study include students and lecturers in department of Vocational and Technical Education Ambrose Alii University, Ekpoma, Edo state. The study will be restricted to technology in vocational education.
