THE EFFICACY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) IN ENHANCING QUALITY OPEN AND DISTANCE (ODL) TEACHING: ZIMBABWE OPEN UNIVERSITY NATIONAL CENTRE’S PROGRAMME LEADERS’ PERCEPTIONS

The study sought to unmask the Zimbabwe Open University’s National Centre’s Programme Leaders’ perceptions of the efficacy of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in enhancing quality Open and Distance Learning (ODL) teaching. It was a qualitative case study which purposely sampled twelve National Centre Programme Leaders from the ZOU’s four faculties: Arts and Education; Applied Social Sciences; Commerce and Law; and Science and Technology. The study’s data were obtained from a questerview which had participants’ demographic data and open-ended questions regarding the phenomenon under study. The study found out that the participants lacked adequate computer literacy skills needed to enable them to attain the efficacy of ICT in enhancing quality ODL teaching. It also emerged from the study that ICT tends to benefit ODL tutors in preparing their work in search for quality ODL teaching. The study concluded that ICT is a bedrock on which quality ODL teaching could be anchored on. It also concluded that students are not trained in ICT during their first semester of their first year of enrolling for university programmes. The study recommends the need for regular and timely ICT training for both tutors and students as a precondition to quality ODL teaching. It also recommends the need for the Andragogic ICT Model (ADIM) in a bid to raise the quality of ODL teaching.