DISTANCE EDUCATION IN RURAL AREAS: PRESERVING THE STRENGTH OF THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The paper examined distance education in rural areas as preserving the strength of the community development in Nigeria. Rural areas are often noted to be poor, lack various services, employment opportunities and leisure activities that cities have and it was against this background that the study examined the extent to which distance education serve as a way of preserving the strength of community development in rural areas in Oyo and Lagos States. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design of the ex-post facto type, while the population was male and female distance learners, distance education facilitators, community representatives and change agents in rural-urban areas of Ibadan North West Local Government Area of Oyo State and Kosofe Local Government Area of Lagos State. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample 397 respondents, while Distance Education in Rural Areas Preserving the Strength of the Community Questionnaire” (DERAPSCQ) was administered on the respondents. Face, construct and content validation of the instrument was carried out, and its reliability value was r=0.93. Chi-Square and t-test statistics were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed that: there was a significant relationship between distance education programme and development of rural-urban areas (X² = 1.97, P<.05); distance education programme had significant difference on community development of rural-urban dwellers that are exposed to distance education compared to rural-urban dwellers that are not exposed to distance education programme (t=.57; df=395; p<.05). Additionally, choice of distance education programme had significant difference on community development of rural-urban dwellers that are involved in distance education programme and those that are not involved on the programme (t=5.21; df-71; p<.05). The study recommended that stakeholders and government should continually expose rural-urban dwellers to distance education programme because of its positive development impact in the areas of expansion, growth and progress recorded in the rural-urban areas. Also, provision of distance education should be embraced by the rural-urban dwellers since it led to desirable choice among those involved in Distance Education Programme.