Lecturers' Multimedia Technology Skills for Global Competitiveness in Public Universities in Rivers State

The study investigated lecturers’ multimedia technology skills for global competitiveness in public universities in Rivers State. The purpose of the study was to examine the ways technological skills can be enhance global competitiveness. Four research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The population comprised 128 academic staff in the Department of Educational Management from the three (3) public universities, namely: Ignatius Ajuru University of Education with 44 academic staff, Rivers State University, 51, and University of Port Harcourt, 33, respectively. A sample size of 128 lecturers was drawn using census sampling technique. A validated instrument titled “Lecturer Multimedia Technology Skill for Global Competitiveness in Public University questionnaire” (LMTSGCPUQ) was used for data collection. The reliability coefficient gave 0.88 for the study, a modified four-point Likert’s scale was used. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer research questions while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The criterion means of 2.50, was interpreted as accepted and below 2.50 was interpreted as rejected. The result revealed that lecturers agreed that video technology, cyber security, troubleshoot skills, among others as the innovative and 21st century academic skills required for global competitiveness in public universities. It was concluded that creating multimedia technology skills would develop lecturers’ mental skills and culture for a competitive advantage. It was recommended that stakeholders in education should encourage the use of multimedia technology skills for quality education delivery, and education managers should engage the services of experience facilitators in order to properly guide lecturers on technology skills related areas, and that non-governmental agencies should support to provide a stable network supply to boost the use of technological devices for teaching and learning in public university.