ANALYSIS OF THE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION ON THE POOR STATUS OF TEACHER EDUCATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This study was carried out to examine teachers’ perception of the poor status of teacher education in Nigeria. To achieve this, a survey research design was adopted for the study. A sample of 1200 secondary school teachers was randomly drawn from three senatorial districts in Delta State. A structured questionnaire with the Likert scale format was administered by the researchers’ research assistants as data collection instrument. The data was analysed using frequency counts and percentages, t-test and chi-square. Findings revealed inter alia that poor conditions of service, deficient teacher-education curriculum, admission of unqualified candidates into teacher education programme and poor training environment are the defects of teacher education in Nigeria. There is a significant relationship between poor teacher education and the poor standard of education in Nigeria.  The researcher recommended among others that admission into faculties of education in universities should be offered to only candidates who chose to study Education in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations. Members of the society should be discouraged from sending their children who have no aptitude for the teaching profession to teacher-training institutions.