Appraisal of Information and Communication Technology Skills Essential for Office Technology and Management Graduates

Abstract

The world is highly computerized and this has affected the normal office work. Typing and taking notes through dictation and transcribing is almost obsolete now. There is need for Office Technology and Management graduates to possess information and communication skills to enable them to be gainfully employed upon graduation. These ICT skills include Electronic Spreadsheet skills, Power point Presentation skills, and Database management skills, Desktop Publishing Skills, word processing skills and internet application skills. This study appraised those various skills essential for the occupation of Office Technology and Management graduates in Oyo State tertiary institutions of Nigeria. The study adopted survey design. Four research questions were raised and two hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Populations of 120 lecturers were used for the study. A structured questionnaires validated by experts was used for the collection of data which was analysed using mean and standard deviation, while hypotheses were tested using t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that OTM graduates in Oyo State tertiary institutions need to acquire all the ICT skills mentioned above such as word processing skills, Desktop Publishing skills, internet application skills for them to be gainfully employed. The following recommendations were made that relevant and functional ICT facilities should be made available to OTM department by their institutions. There is no skill acquisition programme that can be successful without the use of relevant equipment and facilities like e-mail and you tube. Tertiary institutions in Oyo State should come together and partner with international ICT training centers in their institutions where staff and students can develop their ICT skills as obtainable now in some universities in Nigeria.