Application of Information and Communication Technology by Principals in The Management of Secondary Schools in Ebonyi State for Job Creation and Empowerment in the Era of Covid-19 Pandemic

The study x-rayed the application of ICT by principals in the management of secondary schools in Ebonyi State for job creation and empowerment. Three purposes and three research questions guided the study. The study adopted survey research design which sought information from the respondents without manipulation of the variables. The population of the study comprised 222 secondary principals and 2,085 secondary school teachers making a total of 2, 307 people. Proportionate stratified simple random sampling technique was adopted in selecting a total of 1,222 respondents for the study. A self-structured questionnaire titled “Application of ICTs by Principals in the Management of Secondary Schools in Ebonyi State (AICTMSS) was used for data collection with a response mode of Very High Extent (VHE), High Extent (HE), Low Extent (LE) and Very Low Extent (VLE) weighted 4, 3, 2, and 1 respectively. The instrument was face validated by one expert in Science and Computer Department and one expert in ICT all in Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki. Split half method for testing reliability was applied to estimate reliability of the instrument using 50 principals and 100 teachers from Ebonyi State Secondary Schools. data collected were computed using the Cronbach Alpha to give 0.72 which seems to be justified for the study. Data collected from the respondents were answered using mean and standard deviation. Findings of the study were that ICT facilities were available to a very low extent, that principals need constant training programmes in the use of ICT facilities and that there are problems inherent in the application of ICT devices by principals in the management of secondary schools in Ebonyi State for job creation and empowerment. The following recommendations among others were made; that government should make provisions in their annual budget for the procurement and distribution of ICT devices to all secondary schools across the Nation and that government should provide training and re-training programmes for secondary school principals.