The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, says the number of internet users on the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) networks has increased from 76,322, 802 in 2014 to 81,892,840 in January 2015. The information is contained in the NCC Monthly Internet Subscriber Data, obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria,NAN, in Lagos.
According to the data, there is an increase of 5,570,038 internet users on the networks in January. And the market share of subscription is shared among the major telecommunication networks, namely, MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat with MTN having the largest share of the market.
Increased internet subscription and usage in a developing country as Nigeria has potentials of impacting positively on the education sector. By implication, more Nigerians are exposed to information that could be of academic and long term learning value.
In absence of concrete statistics and data, it may be safe to conclude that most Nigerian internet users -among the youths- surfs the web for news, particularly, football and entertainment news as well as social networking on facebook and twitter. Secondary usage would be to answer school assignment and homework questions whenever such needs arises. Several schools with internet connections block such social networking sites to discourage students from using them.
To avail Nigerian internet subscribers the academic and literary potentials of the world wide web, increased awareness through such government body as the National Orientation Agency (NOA) should form the nucleus of Internets Use Orientation.
Such campaigns should include in its structure, the use of Massive Open Online Courses, MOOC, such as edx, free resources sites as National Open University resources, NOU,as well as free book stores, which ensures in its overall goal, a mix of fun and learning on the web for the targeted population. And unless such campaign is instituted, there is a greater risk of increase drifts towards the abusive use of the internet, particularly among youths, in a country (Nigeria) with poor internet use policies and regulations.
Positive and purposeful use of the internet in the population could be surprisingly instrumental to continue learning and mass literacy of the populace. Just as earlier stated, nearly half of the Nigeria population (of about 160 million people) now subscribe to use the internet, thus, literacy push may just have a new boost through internet usage.
Time to a have proper use of internet is now !
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