ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study is to investigate the management of instructional materials in secondary schools in Obollo-Afor Education Zone in Enugu State. Four research questions and two hypothesis were formulated to guide the study. The sampling for the study were 282 teachers and all the 86 Principals in Obollo-Afor Education Zone were used for the study. The Instrument used for the study were 32 items,
Structured Questionnaire were administered accordingly in the three local government area that make up Obollo-Afor Education Zone. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation and a t- test statistics were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result revealed that there is availability of instructional materials in Secondary Schools in Obollo-Afor Education Zone but there are some factors militating against the management of instructional materials in Secondary Schools in Obollo-Afor education zone such as absence of government policy, inadequate fund, workshops, storage facilities, maintenance culture, security device and personnel, none cooperative attitude of staff and non- challant attitude of students; thereby hindering the storage and management of instructional materials in Obollo-Afor Education Zone. Based on the findings, it was recommended among other things that teachers should be trained and re-trained on storage, maintenance, and management of instructional materials in Secondary Schools.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
No organization can function effectively without proper management and more importantly no organization can achieve her objectives without instituting a functional management system that will control and harness the three factor resources namely finance, personnel and physical facilities/ equipment. Instructional materials are indispensable in the field of education.
Instructional materials are teaching aids or tools used by teachers in teaching learning situations to motivate, guide and enhance teaching and learning. Instructional materials are items (hardware) or software, which can help the teacher to teach effectively and the learner learn effectively. They refer to all items or things that can be seen, or manipulated with the objective of enhancing teaching learning process. Instructional materials are alternative channels which the classroom teacher can use to concretize a concept during his or her lesson (Onah, 2003).
This is why Oboegbulem, (2006) opined that instructional material constitute one important media which teachers at all levels of Nigeria educational system employ to encourage and promote effective teaching. These are facilitators of teaching-learning activities when properly used. They include all forms of instructional materials and equipment that can be used to promote and encourage effective teaching-learning activities. These are textbooks, workbooks, charts, magazines, maps, journals, periodicals, pamphlets, newspaper, and posters. It also include non-printed materials like film strips, mock-ups, slides, pictures, audio and video tapes, radio and televisions, transparencies and globes, various science apparatuses and chemical as well as computers.
The term instructional materials is used interchangeable with such other terms as learning resources, curriculum materials, instructional media, visual materials, teaching and learning materials, educational materials. Educational technologists have tried to draw a distinction between these terms, one thing is common to them and that is their uses. They are all used to make teaching and learning more effective. In this work, the researcher shall stick to instructional materials alone to avoid ambiguity and also to create room for clarity.
The importance of instructional materials in the field of teaching and learning cannot be over emphasized. It has been recognized by Agun (1982), Onwuka (1984), Onyejemezi, (1986) and Imogie (1990) that instructional material are indispensable in the teaching and learning process. These scholars agreed that instructional materials enhance the quality of instruction and provide direct sensory experiences of seeing, touching, hearing and smelling which are necessary ingredients for understanding and learning. According to Mkpa in Oboegbulam (2006) learners remember 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they hear and see, 70% of what they hear, see, and talk about, 90% of what they hear, see, talk about and do. So, instructional materials make teaching and learning easy, stimulate interest of the learners and help teachers to impact knowledge to students without much stress.
Instruction materials are not sufficient in the schools and the available ones are not useful to the students because most of the teachers do not use them in teaching.
Therefore, it seems instructional materials are not satisfying the objectives they are meant to achieve in teaching and learning. Probably because of poor management hence for this study to investigate the management of instructional materials in Oboll-Afor Education Zone.
Carlton and David opined that instructional materials convey the intended massage effectively and, meaningfully to the learners so that he can receive, understand, retain, and apply the experiences to reach overall educational goals. One way to help students learn is bring them face to face with reality. This can be achieved by using real objects and materials for instructions. They concretize ideas, concepts, theories, facts, principles and generalization. An instructional material will be considered good if it possess certain qualities, which distinguishes it from other things within the environment. So, instructional materials must be relevant to the lesson, objectives, usable, economical, suitable and also must be clear. With the possession of these qualities, the realization of educational objectives will not be far-fetched.
Ukeji (198E) have classified the types of instructional materials that may be used in teaching and learning generally as follows:
- Audio-aids- These are the instructional materials that appeal to the sense of hearing only. They include radio, cassette, record player, and public address system.
- Visual aids- Those materials that appeal to the sense of sight only; such as pictures, objects, slides, charts and posters, chalkboard, textbooks, cartoons, diagrams, periodicals and photographs.
- Audio-visual- Theses resources, are those that appeal to both senses of hearing and sight at the same time such as video tapes, educational television, motion pictures, documentary films, recorded programme, demonstrated film.
- The last classification of instructional materials are those that make use of electric devices such as chalkboard projector and slides projector, non-projected materials are those ones that can be used without electronic devices such as chalkboard, charts, pictures, textbooks, models and flannel board.
It is very clear from the last classification that it might not be easy to procure most of these materials due to lack of resources and their high costs, however some of them can be cheaply improvised by teachers, schools, and government. In the recent time, due to financial constraints, attitude of individual teachers and low interest of the government had highly depreciated the teaching and learning qualities of most of the teachings in secondary schools. For the teachers to perform better and students to learn effectively, with ease and comfort, instructional materials must be provided and utilized properly in all our schools. Even the National Policy Federal Republic of Nigeria 1981 Revised: stated clearly the need for teachers to actively involve themselves in the production assessment of educational materials and teaching aids, including the technical innovation and new techniques in teaching.
This means that teachers should not only produce or improve teaching aids, but also make proper use of instructional materials. The Federal Government has since shown her appreciation on the importance of teaching aids into the country but most secondary schools cannot boost of having those equipment in their schools.
It is also worthy to note; that the case of teaching aids centres on the learner. Any teacher who is concerned about his student is bound to have though to “anything” that is likely to help them learn, and utilization of instructional materials most certainly do help. These materials, if properly and often utilized are very essential tools in concretizing any topic to be imparted into the students in secondary schools respectively.
The utilization of these materials however, do not guarantee effective communication nor effective teaching and learning. It is the careful selection and skillful handling as well as appropriate presentation by the teachers that renders them useful in facilitating learning.
It is important to note that provision of instructional materials has been the responsibility of the government. That was of course when the number of schools and the enrolment levels were low, and when the economy was buoyant. Now that there is a geometric increase in both the number of schools and school enrolment and now that we are in a period of economic quagmire, the government can no longer make adequate supply of all the needed instructional materials in schools.
The general concept of management according to Akube (1991) are a method of utilization and maintenance of human and material resources for maximum benefit. Abiola (1992 noted that management anywhere in the world involves the maintenance of labour, infrastructure and other resources for effective administration to produce desirable results).
Management is therefore the work of a manager or principal to plan, organize/direct and supervise the activities of both labour and machinery for maximum productivity to accomplish the set objectives. Management decides on what to do, when and with what to do the things, and who is to do a thing in an organized system.
Management of instructional materials consist of planning, organizing, coordinating, processing and maintaining the available instructional material with the sole aim of achieving instructional objective.
Although its usefulness as an effective tool cannot be attained without proper management by the school administrator. This is why Agun (1988) has defined instructional management as the various approaches used to provide instructional materials, facilities and other related services in schools to make teaching and learning effective. Owens (197) on his own part defined instructional material management as a generic term used to describe the operation, function and behaviour of media personnel in procuring, organizing and maintaining instructional materials in various educational institutions. From the foregoing definition, it implies that instructional material management is the process by which instructional materials, personnel and services are procured, organized, coordinated and utilized to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in teaching and learning, instructional material maintenance, keeping and preserving of instructional materials from damage, loss or deterioration (Ogbonnaya (1997). Management of instructional materials in schools involves how instructional materials are purchased, supplied, utilized, stored or packaged in principals office, library, and staff rooms or abandoned at school store or laboratory rooms without proper care by technicians or qualified personnel. Therefore it seems there are problems with management of instructional materials and this has necessitated this study.
