THE EFFECTS OF TRAINING ON TEACHERS JOB PERFORMANCE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Teachers are at the heart of providing quality education to students. They facilitate students’ learning and ensure that they thrive academically so that they fulfill their potential and find meaningful careers. Teachers and the quality of their teaching are now widely recognized as the most critical of many important factors that combine to create overall quality of education (Darling Hammond, 2000; Leu & Price Rom, 2006; UNESCO, 2004). (Angrist and Lavy, 2001), a study about in-service teachers’ training in Jerusalem revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between teachers’ training and students’ test scores. The cost-benefit analysis of the study also shows that teachers’ training could provide a less costly way of improving students’ grades than cutting down the class size or increasing the class hours. (Pascal Bressoux et al December, 2008), the way a teacher delivers knowledge/lecture is not changed by the training he/she receives. The improvement in students’ performance with a trained teacher is just because of a better grip on subject matter.

Training of teachers’ is also necessary especially in today’s environment to cope with the changing demands of the profession. Trained teachers’ are in a better position to educate the students. Training could improve a teacher’s knowledge on subject matter, teaching method etc. Teacher education, training and development are a means for professional upgrading which deals with all developmental functions directed at the maintenance and enhancement of their professional competence. The quality of teachers that work in a specific educational system help in the attainment of positive learning outcomes in schools. Performance of teachers is partly dependent on their preserve training in addition to the in-service training given to the teachers. Pre-service teacher training programs (PSTP) are very crucial in order to upgrade teachers’ skills, knowledge and performance and also to enable them to be more eective. On the other hand, In-service training programs (ISTP) are necessary to re-orientate teachers to new goals and values, to train them in new teaching and learning methods, to prepare them to cope with curriculum change, and to provide them with the knowledge and skills to teach new learning areas (Al-Zoubi et al., 2010). Training and development have become the most important factor in the organizational world today, because it increases the eiciency and the effectiveness of both employees and the organization (Raja, Furqan and Khan, 2011). Employee training and development is a major force in the economic success of any institution, and educational institutions cannot afford but to develop the requisite manpower to support both the productive and service industries (Sarbeng, 2013). (Shaheen, Naqvi and Khan 2013) defined training as a systematic development of the knowledge, skills and behaviour required by employees to do adequately on confirmed task or job. According to (Amin et al., 2013) training is simply learning that is provided in order to improve performance on the present job. Employee development is aimed at providing employees with competencies for anticipated future jobs and roles. (Sims, 2002) emphasizes that training focuses on present jobs while development prepares employees for possible future jobs.

Training and development can be thought of as processes designed to enhance the professional knowledge skills and attitudes of educators so that they might, in turn, improve the learning of students. Training and development are important part of teacher preparation programs, especially for those aspects of teaching that are more skilled-like in their conception, but there are many other important aspects of teaching that can only be nurtured through reflective strategies and experiences (Rahman, et al, 2011). In-service training program for teachers tends to increase the qualities possessed by a good teacher which positively aect the performance of a teacher. (Harris and Sass, 2001) studied eects of teacher training on teacher value added. The result showed that training of a teacher was positively associated with productivity in middle and high school math. The results further revealed that more experienced teachers appeared more effective in teaching elementary and middle school reading. In the modern world, in service training plays a crucial and pivotal role in improvement of education. To meet the institutional needs in term of skills and knowledge, the roles and capabilities of trainees can be improved through in-service training. Only trained teachers can set goals for teaching and can organize plans for reaching those goals (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). Eective teachers have good strategies for helping students (Bockerts, Pitrich & Zeidner, 2000). Training works as a catalyst which provokes a significant change in a teacher, redefines role, broadens vision and enhances the attributes of a teacher. In-service teacher training enables teachers to be more systematic and logical in their teaching style (Kazmi, Pervez, Mumtaz, 2011).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Over the years, there has been complaints of a steady decline in the academic performance of students. For instance, statistics released by WAEC in 2015 indicates that 25.29% of candidates passed in mathematics (A1 to C6, 23.63% passed in integrated science (A1-C6) and 50.29% passed in English (A1-C6) (Doozie, 2015). Furthermore, students who sat for the 2016 exams failed in the core subjects of Mathematics, English, Science and Social Studies. About 32 percent of the students obtained the passing grade of A to C6 in the core subjects and 19.82 percent of students obtained D7-E8, which most tertiary institutions consider as a fail score, and about 38.10 percent of students had F9. This has generated much public outcry on the standard of the educational system. Although the blame for the decline can partly be attributed to the lack of educational infrastructure and teacher motivation, much of the problem is due to the lack of regular In-service training for teachers. In recent years, Ministry of Education has shied focus in providing In-service training to teachers, especially the Senior High Schools Teacher, to rather providing infrastructure, failing to recognize that this infrastructure is useless without the availability of competent trained teachers to use this educational infrastructure. Hence the main objective of the study is to examine the effect of training on teacher job performance in Ijebu North LGA, Ogun state.