Information Communication Technology and the African Student

To engage students, improve learning and become a cutting edge educator, it becomes necessary to combine traditional classroom instruction with online or mobile learning activities through the technological world which moves so fast and changes so rapidly. The objective of this study was to build an evidence-based framework that explains the challenge of the developing countries’ students in respect of maximizing the full potentials of the computer for educational activities. Questionnaires were administered to 213 students of the University of Ibadan and the Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo state of Nigeria. A major limitation to maximizing the full potentials of the computer is poor power energy supply. 62.9% of the population understudied pay to use computer for academic purposes. The cost per hour ranged between #50 to #100 plus. The benefits of collaborative learning and teaching with multiple instructors; integration of external expertise and video conferencing system to create geographically distributed discussion of panels of experts is visibly not maximized. Ultimately, the significant gain in economic productivity as a result of education which may be the most promising way to stimulate general economic growth is lost. This study strongly recommends improved access to computers for the African students.Keywords: Information communication technology, education, challenges, development, statistic

A Comparison of Alternative Estimators of Macro-Economic Model of Ethiopia

During the past 5 decades a number of econometric techniques were developed and applied to a variety of econometric relationships to deal with the problem of single equation estimation as well as simultaneous equations bias. These days, such methods have very wide applications especially in more developed countries. However, there has been very little attempt to apply these techniques to empirical relationships describing the macro-economic sector of developing countries in general and Ethiopia in particular. In this study, a small macroeconometric model of Ethiopia is used to identify the best estimation techniques that will produce accurate forecast of the economy of Ethiopia. Six econometric methods were considered. The prediction accuracy of these estimators was examined using time series data covering the period 1970 to 2004. The results indicated that considerable gain in forecasting accuracy can be achieved by using 2SLSAUT01 and 2SLSAUT02 than simple ordinary least squares or two stage least squares to estimate macro-economic models. Key Words: Econometric Techniques, Econometric Models, Ethiopia, Predictio

Bootstrap Approach to Comparison of Alternative Methods of Parameter Estimation of a Simultaneous Equation Model

A bootstrap simulation approach was used to generate values for endogenous variables of a simultaneous equation model popularly known as Keynesian Model of Income Determination. Three sample sizes 20, 30 and 40 each replicated 10, 20 and 30 times were considered. Four different estimation techniques: Ordinary Least Square (OLS); Indirect Least Square (ILS); Two-Stage Least Square (2SLS) and Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) methods were employed to estimate the parameters of the model. The estimators were then evaluated using the average parameter estimates; absolute bias of the estimates and the root mean square error of the estimates. The result shows that generally, ILS provided the best estimates. Keywords: Bootstrap, endogenous, exogenous, least squares, maximum likelihood.African Research Review Vol. 2 (3) 2008: pp. 51-6

Determinants of PhD Completion Time at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria

The demand for Ph.D degree holders has increased in recent time because of their potential to stimulate national development and promote technological advancement. In view of the desire of the nation to be among the first 20 most developed nations by 2020 and meet the manpower requirement of teaching in the growing tertiary institutions, it is important to examine completion rate and duration of PhD programmes in Nigeria’s foremost university. This paper examined completion time of PhD programme at the University of Ibadan. The main objective is to build a statistical model to explain factors accounting for the variation in completion time. The data used were captured through a survey questionnaire administered by the Postgraduate School, University of Ibadan on 2011/2012 graduating set. Apart from conducting an extensive exploratory analysis on PhD production in the university, a binary logistic regression model was also fitted. The dichotomous responses were: completion on time and completion over time. The fitted logistic regression shows that only 10% of PhDs have predicted probability of completion between 0.4 and 0.94 and factors like gender, Mphil/PhD conversion, marital status and employment status were found to significantly affect PhD completion time. Keywords: PhD degree, completion time, logistic regressio

inflationary dynamics in Nigeria: A reassessment

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Spatial Modelling of Road Traffic Accidents in Oyo State, Nigeria

Roads often become sources of sorrow and venues of loss. Road accidents are a global scourge characteristic of our technological era, whose list of victims insidiously grows longer day by day. Most families have found themselves mourning, surrounded by indifference that is all too common as if this was a price that the society has to pay for the right to travel. The basic underlying assumption is that there is a spill over effect across the study area. The neighbourhood characteristics focused on the queen and rook contiguity based on weight matrices. The paper investigated the possible exogenous variables and built a spatial model for predicting areas with higher than expected future likelihood of accidents while controlling for spatial dependence. Removing the effect of spatial lag variable from the dependent variable (number of accidents), the area of each Local Government Authority, residential population, major road lengths and travel densities were used to predict areas with higher than expected future likelihood of accidents. The sign of the coefficient for the area is positive. This means an increase in the area of administration of local government authorities will lead to more accidents in each local government area. All other things being equal, Local Governments Areas with larger residential populations tend to have more accidents. The existence of a freeway link crossing a local government area reduces, on average approximately one accident for the period under study. Travel densities are negatively related to number of accidents, which suggests inhibiting factors in the sense that traffic generated tend to be associated with fewer crashes. Keywords: Road traffic accidents, spill over effect, spatial lag modelling, maximum likelihood estimatio

Multivariate Association in Road Traffic Crashes and the Policy Implication for Maximum Remedial Effect

In 2010, the governments of the world declared 2011-2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety. The unanimous support for this Decade of Action from member states explains the growing awareness of the devastating scale of road traffic injuries as a global public health and development problem. Despite the enormous toll exacted by road traffic injuries, they have for many years been neglected by global health and development agendas, and funding for interventions has not been commensurate with the scale of the problem. Strategies do exist, however, that have proven to reduce road traffic injuries and a number of countries have successfully used these to reduce their road traffic deaths. The objective of this study is to use the Oyo State-Nigeria evidence-based case to explain the need to take cognisance of neighbourhood characteristics in policy designs and decision- making to enhance significant remedial effect from interventions in an attempt to reduce road traffic injuries and deaths. The characteristics investigated include major road lengths, travel density, residential population and the area of administration. The study concludes that spillover effects do exist in road traffic crashes (RTC) within spatial units across geographical regions – as such, neighbourhood characteristics cannot be ignored when planning for intervention. Apparently, the need to incorporate spatial analysis with existing strategies to achieve maximum remedial effect cannot be over emphasised. These results should enable the orientation of safety and injury prevention policies targeted towards reducing the frequencies of RTC.Keywords: road traffic crashes, spillover effects, interventions, development, policie