Availability and Students' Utilitization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Tertiary Institutions in Akwa Ibom State.

This was an investigation into the availability and students’ ratings of their use of internet facilities for their academic pursuit in tertiary institutions in Akwa Ibom State. It employed the survey research methodology which was conducted using questionnaire. To elicit responses for the study, four research questions were formulated. The survey instrument which was a four-item structured questionnaire were administered to one hundred and eight (108) students, randomly selected from the final year class of the three tertiary institutions studied. Analyses of findings revealed that students find the internet to be a very useful tool in their academic pursuit, which internet facilities available to students were found on the campuses, scattered about in cyber cafes rather than in the institutional libraries. Notably, it was also discovered that some of the students could not utilize the indispensable facilities of the internet due to lack of skill; and most respondents were limited to using only two search engines. It was therefore recommended that facilitics for internet utilization be increased in the University libraries and internet study introduced in all students programmes to accord them the necded skills for navigating the net as these will influence their study patterns.