STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES AND SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS’ WORK PERFOEMANCE IN UYO SENATORIAL DISTRICT, AKWA IBOM STATE, NIGERIA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Education is very important in the development of a nation in general and a person in particular. It is through education that individuals and groups realize their worth and potentials. This is why the government of developing countries, of which Nigeria is an example, make efforts to provide education for all their citizens making it more accessible to youths and investing a large proportion of its income in it. One of the most important components of educational system is the teacher. After God, it is the teacher that “makes” a person what he is. We are what we are because the teacher helped or did not help us to identify and develop the potentials God stored in us. Making a person is not a day’s task; it requires skills, techniques and methods. For school teachers, this task is made possible through effective teacher education (teachers’ pre-service education/training) and development programmes (on-the-job education/training programmes).
Lawal (2004) stated that teachers education as well as development programmes for teachers are important aspects of education processes that deal with the art of acquiring skills in teaching profession; they are essential exercises that enhance subject mastery, teaching methodology and classroom management. Aswathappa (2002) in his opinion said that successful candidates placed on the jobs need training to perform their duties effectively; they need to be developed in order to enable them to grow and acquire maturity of thought and action. He further suggested that training and development programmes must contain inputs that enable the participants to gain skills, learn theoretical concepts and acquire vision to look into the distant future. In addition to this, he said that, such programmes should impart ethical orientation, emphasize on attitudinal changes, stress upon decision-making and problem-solving abilities. Archibong (2002) believed that training and development refer to the imparting of specific skills, abilities and knowledge to an employee and should therefore constitute an ongoing process in any organization.
Goody and Kozoll (2005) said that staff development is often viewed as simply pulling teachers out of the classroom for a day or two a year to provide them with a “sit-and-get” session on educational matters; that although designing a relevant effective programme is challenging, the rewards for teachers and students are well worth the time and effort. Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin (1995) suggested that staff development also means providing occasions for teachers to reflect critically on their practice and to fashion new knowledge and beliefs about content, pedagogy, and learners. Smith (2002) said that effective staff development programmes address three types of learning situations – knowledge is gained about how learning is produced (function); about what happens when people learn (process); participants develop new knowledge and skills as teachers and administrators (product); hence, effective development programmes become vehicles for learning as well as an active process of transmitting new knowledge, values and skills into behaviour.
Mgbekem (2004) stated that staff development programme, which he otherwise refers to as in-service training or on-the-job training, implies a re-training given to an employee after he/she has been employed and deployed to work and has put up a number of weeks, months or years working. He added that in-service education also includes weekend courses, departmental interaction, committee findings, and exchange of views on crucial educational issues. Edem (2003) stated that staff development does not only refer to teachers’ in-service training, it also embodies a lot of other learning/training opportunities such as workshops, seminars, conferences, demonstration lessons, exchange visits, interest study groups, teachers’ meetings, classroom visits and supervision by school heads. Chukwurah (2004) added by saying that staff development also embodies short-term refresher courses, long-term refresher courses, part-time courses, distant learning, in-house training and holiday sandwich programme.
Mbipom (2000) said that staff development focuses on professional growth; therefore, the principal’s major function is that of facilitating maximum teacher participation in self-development and in-service educational programmes. Sergiovanni and Elliot (2000) stated that staff development programmes for teachers are programmes designed to help teachers to increase their capacity for knowing more about their work and to be able to use this know-how so that they can perform without direct supervision. Every successful teacher placed on the job therefore, needs to be trained and refreshed with new teaching skills, methods, techniques and professional abilities for managing classroom instruction and producing highly motivated, sensitive, conscientious and successful youths who will leave the secondary school with better educational achievement for higher education.
Moreover, in this age of Information Technology and usage of Computer in all facet of life endeavour, the secondary school staff need development programmes to make them aware of the usefulness of Information Technology in Education and to be conversant with modern methods of teaching, new techniques of assessment and evaluation of students, classroom organization and management, lesson planning and presentation, co-curricular activities, preparation and utilization of instructional materials, students’ disciplinary actions, among others.
A wide variety of re-training and development strategies are available. Griffin (1990) enumerated these strategies to include behaviour modeling method, in-house talent training, conference, lecture, in-service or on-the-job training, programmed instruction, interactive video (newly emerging technique using computers and video technology), workshop, seminar, vestibule training, role-playing, and case discussion. Aswathappa (2002) said that a multitude of methods of training are used for re-training and development and he categorized them as on-the-job and off-the-job methods. He referred to on-the-job methods as methods that are applied in the workplace while the employee is actually working; off-the-job methods as methods that are used away from workplace. On-the-job methods, according to him include orientation training, job-instruction training, job rotation, coaching, internships and assistantships. Off-the-job methods include vestibule, lecture, special study, films, television, conference, case study, role-playing, simulation, programmed instruction, seminar and workshops. Lanier and Little (2000) noted that staff development comes in many forms; that it can take place in the workplace or in some other environments, it can be required or voluntary, it can be offered by an organization or sought independently by an individual; two-hour lectures, three-day conference and year-long courses can all be considered as staff development. Sparks and Loucks-Horsley (1990) suggested that five types of staff development models are used for teachers and these include individually guided staff development (individuals identify, plan and pursue activities they believe will support their own learning); observation/assessment (teachers are observed directly and given objective data and feedback about their classroom performance); involvement in a development/ improvement process (teachers develop curriculum, design programs, or become involved in school improvement processes to solve general or specific problems); training (teachers engage in individual or group instruction in which they acquire knowledge or skills); and inquiry (teachers identify and collect data in an area of interest, analyze and interpret the data, and apply their findings to their own practice). Nwachuku (1994) said that selection of a particular method or methods depends on many considerations such as training content, cost, time, number of trainees, and whether the re-training is to be done by in-house resource person or by a resource person outside.
Esu (1997) confirmed the above statement by stating that, there has been a greater awareness that teachers who were trained some few years ago are not adequately equipped to perform effective teaching today except complemented by in-service teachers’ training. This, according to her means that, 2 – 4 years teacher preparation programmes do not adequately prepare teachers for their teaching job as there are too little time in which to cover it. Ekanem (2005) in her study found out that secondary school teachers produced from our colleges and universities are not properly equipped for the effective implementation of the secondary school programmes. The ill-equipped teachers, according to her, find it difficult to perform creditably in the classroom, they cannot defend what they claim to know, and may from time to time face disgraceful situation when faced with challenges. To take care of these inadequacies, The National Policy on Education (2004) pointed out that teacher education will continue to take cognizance of changes in methodology and in curriculum, that, no matter the efficiency of the pre-service training given to teachers, there will necessarily be areas of inadequacies; in-service education of teachers will therefore continue to fill those gaps. With the numerous roles of teachers, which range from co-curricula responsibilities to instructional, counseling, administrative, supervisory, and curriculum development responsibilities as well as their roles as psychologists, sociologists, social workers, baby-sitters, coaches, club advisers, guardians, mothers and fathers to the children left in their care for about eight hours a day, a teacher training programme in which an initial teacher training is intimately and permanently linked with regular development programmes is advocated by some educationist. For instance, Chukwurah (2004) suggested that in-service education for teachers is essential because pre-service training is inadequate for the making of a complete and fully effective teacher as well as for continued success in teaching. Fullan (1991) explained that staff development continues to be a critical element that contributes to teacher effectiveness and school improvement. Chukwurah (2004) said that education is a life-long process; no formal training in any teacher training institution can fully prepare a person for professional service. This means that, the much pre-service training can do for any teacher, is to expose him to existing knowledge and create in him a desire to seek new knowledge as he progresses in his profession. Where such a desire is found wanting, according to him, a teacher’s knowledge begins to stagnate and sometimes becomes outdated, his performance becomes ineffective and sometimes may endanger his position too; hence, Guskey (1985) stated that staff development approaches, given time and support for full implementation, can and do have direct, dramatic impact on teachers’ performance.
In Akwa Ibom State, government public secondary schools have on their teaching staff rolls trained (professional) and untrained (non-professional) teachers. Many of the trained teachers have not received any other form of education/training after their pre-service training; the untrained teachers on the other hand, have never received any form of teacher training. Uche and Enukoha (2004) stated that teaching is a profession, and all who desire to belong to the teaching profession should be well grounded in the art of teaching. Apart from this, the society is fast changing due to technological advancements; teachers are not sensitized, informed or educated about these recent changes. Ekanem (2005) stated that some teachers in Akwa Ibom State at the secondary school level, find it very difficult to interpret the curriculum properly and are incapacitated in the subject matter; they find it difficult to make use of instructional materials since they lack the methodology of how to present the materials to the learners. This therefore confirms the fact that the initial training every professional teacher has at Teacher Training College, College of Education and the University, is not enough to carry the teacher through the number of years he has to put-in in the teaching service. For the non-professional teachers, subject mastery at any higher institution does not guarantee effective impartation of knowledge to teenagers in secondary schools.
The concept of work performance therefore, is one of
