ASSIGNMENT GIVEN BY DR. ANERO: FORMULATE ANY RESEARCH TOPIC
AND BUILD UP A BACKGROUND AND STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.
TOPIC: NIGERIA’S JOB DEFICIENCY AND ITS RELATION TO ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE OF LEARNERS IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
By
Emeka Ricky Blessing (PES) M.ED
BACKGROUND
Primary school as many do know is the foundation in education. The
basics are thought in primary schools and more concepts are built upon
what has been learnt as they proceed to secondary schools and higher
institutions respectively. Any learner, who misses a good opportunity to
learn the basics thought in primary schools, finds it very difficult to
enjoy academy, thereby struggles to learn or ends up losing interest in
schooling.
The provisions of the National policy on Education for teacher
education includes the purpose of teacher education, institutions of
training professional teachers and their entry qualifications, curriculum
of Teachers’ colleges and professionalization of teacher. Effective
learning in schools would require effective teaching to accompany the
efforts of the learners. Teacher competence needs to be very high in
order for meaningful teaching learning to take place (Segun, 1986).
Who is an educationist? Educationists are self-motivated, undeterred
by low pay, system constraints, or political minefields. They are
advocates who serve the best interests of students in any educational
setting by facilitating learners’ natural desire to discover and contribute
to the world they live.
On the other hand, a job seeker is someone who is unemployed and
looking for work. Unfortunately, these are the bunch of people we have
in our educational sector today.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Teacher’s primary role of transmission of knowledge and skills is never
in dispute. Therefore a teacher would need to demonstrate efficiency
in this primary role. There is deficiency and poor academic performance
of learners around the country today and this could be traced to lack of
teachers’ competence due to job deficiency in the country.
In time past, teachers were educationist and not job seekers.
Educationists were the ones who dominated schools and they taught
for the love and passion of it. The economy in Nigeria is not job friendly
to young graduates unlike how it was in time past when jobs lie in wait
for graduates.
The education sector that is schools in Nigeria as at now is one of the
most employing organizations in Nigeria. They employ young graduates
both educationist and non-educationist (job seekers) to teach in
primary schools. Majority of graduates in Nigeria have sometimes
taught in a school because that was the only means of survival or
keeping busy because of the job deficiencies in the country. This has
given rise to incompetent teachers and hence birthed poor academic
performance in the life of most learners. The best candidate to teaching
should be attracted. What the academy system needs is not just an
educator, but an educationist.