TECHNICAL TEACHERS’ COMPETENCY NEEDS FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF BASIC TECHNOLOGY IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN CROSS RIVER STATE
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Background to the Study
Teachers have been recognized as indispensable human resource and indeed the single most vital element in the educational system. This conviction is amply reflected in educational literature and in various government policy documents across the globe. For instance, Awoniyi cited in Etuk (2006) stated that new schools may be built, syllabuses revised, new teaching methods and aids recommended and new textbooks provided but in the end everything depends on the quality and quantity of teachers. Similarly, the Federal Government of Nigeria in recognition of the pivotal role of quality teachers noted in the implementation guidelines of the Universal Basic Education programme that many laudable educational initiatives in the country have failed because proper account of the teacher factor was not taken (Federal Republic of Nigeria, FRN, 2000). It therefore stated emphatically in the National Policy on Education that since no education system may rise above the quality of its teachers, teacher education shall continue to be given major emphasis in all educational planning and development (FRN, 2013). It is worthy to note that the primary source for producing professional teachers in Nigeria is through teacher education programmes offered in teacher training institutions such as universities and colleges of education. Akpan and Silas (2013) noted that the initial training teachers receive during their teacher education programmes is inadequate to enable them continue for life to perform the changing complex tasks of the teacher for many reasons. First is the inadequacy of most teacher preparatory programmes vis-a-vis the varying standards in facilities, personnel and course offerings. Secondly, the society is continuously undergoing changes in values, attitudes and knowledge as a result of the 1 2 ever increasing rate of technological advancement. Thirdly, new and more sophisticated technologies are being developed for use in schools and teachers stand the risk of being declared redundant and obsolete if they do not avail themselves of opportunities to improve their knowledge and skills in the use of such technologies. In order to address these inadequacies in the initial training of teachers, determination of technical teachers competency needs becomes imperative. Pearson (2007) viewed competency as ability to do something well measured against a standard especially ability acquired through experience or training. Pearson added that to be competent implies having enough knowledge and skills to do something to a satisfactory standard. Contextually, competency is the capacity of a technical teacher who is teaching Basic Technology to effectively teach the content of Basic technology curriculum in junior secondary schools. Basically, competent teachers of Basic Technology are expected to posses the skills and knowledge required in the teaching of the subject matter to students and where this is not adequate, retraining to boost their competencies becomes indispensable. The Federal Government of Nigeria also acknowledged the need for teachers’ competency improvement when it stipulated that teacher education shall continue to take cognizance of changes in methodology and the curriculum and that teachers shall be regularly exposed to innovations in the profession (FRN, 2013). Similarly, Schleicher (2012) noted that as teachers around the world are undertaking wide-range reforms to better prepare children for the higher educational demands of life and work in the 21st century, the skills that young people demand in the rapidly changing world and the competencies teachers need to effectively teach these skills in a 21st century classroom are equally changing. Schleicher further pointed out that, for instance, today, where students can access unlimited contents on search engines and where routine cognitive 3 skills are being digitalised or outsourced, these have serious implications for teacher preparation and continuing professional development. Moreover, Akpan and Silas (2013) stated that retraining of teachers is imperative as it will among others enhance the improvement of their competency needs. In addition, the technical teachers recruitment process is plagued with lack of transparency and extensive application of non-professional criteria, including political patronage. Technical teachers are not seriously evaluated and they advance on promotion only by seniority. Thus, once recruited, there is no way for the authorities to get rid of even notoriously poor performers. According to Owolabi (2012), this invariably could result in a situation where Nigerian secondary schools are filled with anybody who is willing to teach such that there are non-professional teachers who have adequate subject content knowledge but lack pedagogical skills. There are also professional technical teachers who are obsolete in knowledge in the light of recent innovations and developments in the technological and educational systems. This development could be eliminated through a workable retraining programme designed to meet their competency needs. Furthermore, Schleicher (2012) noted that globalisation and development in information and communication technology are causing profound changes in the world of work. Schleicher further noted that these changes have profound implications for teachers and the entire education system particularly with respect to the learning processes and necessary teacher competencies, Again, the Asia Society (2012) encapsulated the need for retraining of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) teachers when it stated that “We are trying to teach twenty-first century skills with twentieth-century teachers in nineteenth-century learning environments”. It added that “teacher preparation programmes should prepare teachers with the values, skills, and knowledge not just to keep abreast with the times but also be ahead of their time” (p. 6). 4 Really, improvement in competency needs is necessary for teachers of every subject, including teachers of Basic Technology. Basic Technology is a compulsory subject in the basic education programme and it is being taught by technical teachers who specialize in different areas of technical education. These areas include electrical/electronics technology, building technology, woodworking technology, auto-mechanic technology among others. It is an amalgamation of topics from a wide range of technical subjects such as woodwork, metalwork, electricity/electronics, building technology, technical drawing, food storage and preservation, among others. Udoudo, Udoetuk and Ekon (2012) identified the purpose of Basic Technology to include inculcating technological literacy, exposing students to the world of work to match their talents and interests for wise vocational choice and inculcating positive attitudes towards work as a source of human identity, livelihood and power. The need for competency improvement needs of Basic Technology teachers in Nigeria is underscored by Akpan and Silas (2013) who noted that Basic Technology is taught as an integrated subject with one teacher teaching all the components. They further argued that since the Basic Technology teachers were not prepared in all these trade areas in Basic Technology, they may not be able to teach the subject effectively because of their narrow preparation. Similarly, Ogbuanya (2005) noted that Basic Technology being an amalgamation of a number of distinctive technical trade areas should not be taught by teachers most of whom are generally trained in only one or two of these trade areas. This position is shared by Atsumbe, Raymond and Mele (2012) who reported that majority of the teachers employed to teach the subject in Kogi state cannot handle all the components effectively. Udoudo, Udoetuk and Ekon (2012) expressed the fear that this problem might become aggravated with the inclusion of new topics from Information and 5 Communication Technology (ICT) in the new Basic Education curriculum as these topics may tend to be difficult for some of the technical teachers to handle effectively. The implication of this is that the Basic Technology teacher must possess necessary competencies. Selvi (2010) defined competencies as the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, motivations and beliefs people need in order to be successful in a job. Adodo (2014) viewed competency in teaching as the ability of the teacher to exhibit on the job skills and knowledge gained as a result of training. Several areas of teachers competency have been identified in educational literature. These include instructional competencies, professionalism competencies (Roberts, Dooley, Harlin & Murphy, 2006), field competencies, curriculum competencies, emotional competencies and information and communication technology competencies (Selvi, 2010). Others are pedagogical skills and affective work skills (Atsumbe, Raymond & Mele, 2012; Akpan & Silas, 2013), intra and interpersonal competencies (the European Higher Field of Education, 2011), students mentoring competencies (Ekong, 2013b) and laboratory management competencies (Ogwo & Oranu, 2006; Onweh, 2013). This study is centred on eight broad areas of teachers’ competency needs namely pedagogical competency, information and communication technology (ICT) competency, laboratory management competency, affective work competency, intra-personal competency, interpersonal competency, classroom management competency and instructional materials development and utilization competency. Basically, gender is an important variable to consider in this study. According to Abdul-Raheem (2010), gender involves the roles, attitudes, behavior and values ascribed by the society to males and female. It is enforced, through culture practices. Hence, the type of training and exposures given to male and female individuals in a given society 6 depend on the people’s understanding and belief. Gender, therefore is a very important variable because a person’s personal orientation and outlook play a crucial role in performance. Academically, both male and female teachers are involved in the teaching of Basic Technology in Cross River State but the female technical teachers are very few in numbers in relation to the male counterparts. Various scholars such as Igbinedion and Ojeaga (2012); Amoor (n.d); Ediagbanya, Agbaje and Suberu (2012) have identified some major factors responsible for low participation of female in technical and vocational education to include among others, low societal estimation of technical and vocational education(TVE) as education for the lowest class of people, education for the last resort, for people of low intelligent quotient, low achievers and low status occupation. Erinosho (1997), Ndahi (1987) in Edu and Edu (2012), separately observed that in the past, neither traditional nor western education encouraged or provided equal opportunities for women to enter the field of vocational and technical education. According to Ndahi (2002), during the early period of the development of technical education in Nigeria, a technician was considered a male who could repair mechanical or electronic devices or products (turn screws, nuts, and bolts). It was not conceivable at that time to think of a female as a technician, therefore, participation in these technical institution was strictly boys for industrial technical education courses and girls for the vocational home economics. Furthermore, factors affecting female participation in TVET programmes include: relegation of women to the home; parental perceptions of cost/benefits of educating girls(this affects low income families particularly); patriarchy (female seclusion practices and early marriage); discriminatory labour market practices; masculine image of TVET projected in textbooks, media and popular assumptions; poor facilities, including teacher-supply, teacher quality and equipment; nature of TVET 7 occupations which is not easily combined with child-rearing and child-care; lack of female role models; gender bias TVET curriculum; peer pressure; early marriage; demand for female to care for siblings, homes and farms (Ayonmike, 2010). In order to boost the participation of female teachers in the teaching of Basic Technology, it behooves Cross River State government to urgently come out with a workable and result oriented sensitization programme. According to Abassah (2011), it is disheartening that there is presently no well articulated and sustainable continuing professional development programme for technical teacher educators in Nigeria after the failure of the erstwhile Technical Teacher Training Programme (TTTP). According to Atsumbe, Raymond and Mele (2012), the observed poor performances of some Basic Technology teachers in Nigeria can be partly attributed to the fact that most of them commence and end their teaching careers with just the basic training received during their pre-service teacher training programmes without updating their knowledge and skills to meet with the changes in their various areas of specialization. Indeed, there are numerous documented evidences on the poor performances of Basic Technology teachers in Nigeria especially in the South-South region, and these justify why they should be retrained to enable them grow professionally and remain up-to-date and relevant. Atsumbe, Raymond and Mele (2012) reported that a survey on technical teacher production by Aina in 2008 indicated that the teacher quality factor ranks highest out of all the militating factors against the full implementation of the Basic Technology programme in Nigerian secondary schools. This source maintained that the panel observed that majority of the teachers employed to teach the subject cannot handle all the modules in Basic Technology. Moreover, Adodo (2014) reported that most teachers of Basic Science and Technology lack knowledge of basic principles and skills in producing simple classroom 8 tests for evaluating students’ learning outcome. In addition, Umunadi (2009) reported that most TVET teachers appear to lack adequate skills in developing and utilizing contemporary instructional materials, especially Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment in instructional delivery. Consequently, the quality of instructions offered by many teachers are poor and the delivery systems are made abstract because teachers teach without the relevant instructional materials. This partly contributes to students’ poor performances in technology subjects in both internal and external examinations in recent years (See Appendix A, p. 147). Adodo (2014) reported that there had been public criticism and disappointment over the students’ performances in science and technology subjects in West African Examination Council (WAEC) examinations and the recent Chief examiners’ report attributes these failures to poor teaching and assessment practices by teachers. This researcher has observed that the trend in students’ performances in Basic Technology in the Basic Education Certificate Examinations conducted by the National Examination Council (NECO) in Cross River State is similar to the above report. It is obvious that the low competency level of the Basic Technology teachers could hamper their teaching effectiveness. Invariably, where the teacher lacks the basic competencies, their students are likely to become ill-equipped to enter and progress meaningfully in the career. This seems to be the situation in most secondary schools in Nigeria today especially in Cross River State. Obviously, this is a clear indication that the Nigerian education system is at risk as a result of the low competency level of the Basic Technology teachers. However, it has been observed that 50% of the students who sat for Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) failed in Basic Technology in 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 session (See appendix B, p. 156). This could be attributed to incompetency on the part of Basic Technology teachers in equipping the students with 9 knowledge, skills and attitudes that could assist them in performing very well in their examination. In view of the fact that teacher quality is a strong predictor of students’ quality, the poor performances of students in Basic Technology calls for the attention of the stakeholders. This position is shared by Ayonmike (2010) who noted that the presence of new technologies have given rise to the demand for training and re-training in new skills in the existing and new occupational areas in order that people might fit into today’s and tomorrow’s world of work. Similarly, Umunadi (2010) noted that training and retraining of workers, including teachers, is necessary because of the changes occasioned by technological development and globalization. It is pertinent to note that the acquisition of useful and relevant competencies by technical teachers who are teaching Basic Technology in Cross River State could in no small measure enhance students’ performance in Basic Technology examination. From the foregoing, it is pertinent to determine technical teachers’ competency needs for effective teaching of Basic Technology in junior secondary schools in Cross River State.
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