• International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.27-38
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• 2023

The study investigated the Integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the Library and Information Science Curriculum: The Practicum in Library Schools in Rivers State. Descriptive survey design was used with a population 374 comprising 21 LIS educators and 353 Four Hundred Level Library and Information Science Students from University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education Port Harcourt. Census sampling technique was used to select the LIS educators and purposive sampling technique was used to the select the Four Hundred Level LIS students. Questionnaire and checklist were used for data collection. 90% and 97% responses were found valid for analysis for LIS Educators and LIS students respectively. The study was analyzed using mean rating, standard deviation and simple percentage. The study revealed that ICT courses were integrated into LIS curriculum in Library schools in Rivers State but LIS educators lacked the ICT skills to teach ICT practicum consequently, the students were not properly taught ICT practicum. However, students had positive perception of ICT practicum. Notwithstanding, lack of ICT skills, poor policy implementation, lack of state-of-the-art infrastructure and nonchalant attitudes of staff towards the adoption of ICT constituted the challenges faced in the implementation of ICT practicum. The study therefore, recommended that the management of library schools in Rivers State should implement ICT practicum by hiring competent staff maybe from computers science department to teach the practicum for the interim. Subsequently, recruitment of librarians should include strictly ICT compliant.

• Journal of KIISE
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.336-345
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• 2016

Since no course is offered in the area of professional ICT(Information & Communication Technology) in the high school curriculum, high school students do not have the opportunity to learn about the ICT engineering area and the possible career paths in the field. Due to this problem, high school students are not motivated to choose ICT majors at university level, and in turn, the ICT departments are struggling to recruit qualified students. In this paper, we present an R&E (research and education) model to mitigate this problem. We also present a case study on the program following the model offered by "H" university in collaboration with a local high school. Through the program we provided high school students with design and development experiences to solve engineering problems related to the ICT area and tried to attract their attention to ICT majors. The participants of the R&E program were able to experience the systematic engineering design process, ICT tools, teamwork, and communication skills through problem solving procedures. Based on three years of observation and the survey, it was found that more than 76% of students were motivated highly by ICT and engineering majors via the program. The main contribution of the paper is that we have proposed and proved the R&E program model and applied the ICT R&E model to a program to attract qualified students to ICT majors.