Management of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Nigerian Higher Education: Costs and Implications

Abstract

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) management is the use of modern electronic equipment to facilitate information and communication, ideas, knowledge and skills. It is the process of data management whether hard or soft. Bedeviled with sundry crises in the form of staff strikes, student riots, cultism and in some occasions even caught up in communal clashes, the Nigerian higher education, especially the Universities have manifested the symptoms of inept and inapt information order. With thirty-six Universities (24 Federal and 12 states owned) and a few private ones, the costs of managing information are expected to be on the high side, considering the factor of resistance to change as one of the myriad of the causes of University crises within the higher education structure. The paper observes that information – related subheads in the financial administrative structure of most federal universities bear a pittance when compared to other relatively less vital subheads. The paper discusses the place of information and communication technology management in the University administration and the principal features of an ideal information and communication technology system. Literature overview was made on the schedule of recurrent allocations relative to allocations for information and communication technology in Nigeria, followed by discussion, conclusion and recommendations.