Background to the Study
The purpose of education is to develop knowledge, skills and character of students. Thus education is the process of learning and knowing, which is not restricted to schools or textbooks. Education is very important for an individual‟s life. Education is a major aspect of development of any modern society. The importance of education is evident at every stage, whether at primary, Junior Secondary, Senior Secondary and in Higher institution (Salihu, 2015). No nation can develop without the provision of sound education to its teaming population, Nigeria inclusive. This entails entire educational system and its curriculum, including Social Studies, which led to the first muting of the introduction of Social Studies as a discrete subject and its acceptance by the 1969 National Curriculum conference of 8th -12th September, when social studies was introduced into schools; it was regarded as a combination of History, Geography, Civic etc. This conception gave rise to a lot of questions such as: 1. Why do we want to substitute new name for those subjects with us? 2. Why integrate disciplines which are already well defined without a clear reason? (Charity 2009). To clarify the confusion that set in, a committee on primary Social Studies programme in Nigeria defined Social Studies as “those common learning of man‟s interaction with his social and physical environment… it is not only a study, but a way of life, of how man influences and is influenced by physical, social, political, economic and cultural environment”. Social Studies entails long-life education, 2 stressing on learning and acquiring of positive social economic, political values, attitudes and skills for judicious utilization of human and natural resources (Livingstone in Danladi, 2005; Agenes and Abdusalam, 20014). Around the world there are many similarities and differences among teachers in the way they are trained and certified as professionals to teach in schools. In almost all countries teachers are educated in a university or college. Shiundu (1992) notes that teachers without proper academic and professional qualification fail to do justice to the subject. He further adds that an adequate qualification of the teacher instills self confidence in him and serves as an inspiration to the pupils. An experienced teacher has skills, values and positive attitudes to make the learner be curious, aroused and interested in learning. Therefore the researcher intends to investigate the relationship between teacher related factors that include teacher‟s attitudes and academic qualification in the implementation of social studies curriculum in junior secondary schools. Shiundu and Omulando (1992) argued that to most teachers, implementation is their legitimate role in curriculum development. Their reference to the teacher and curriculum is that after a consensus is reached as to what will go into the curriculum of the educational system the next important step is to avail this curriculum package to the educational system, a process that is known as curriculum implementation. Various personnel are involved, but perhaps the one whose role is most important in seeing that programmes are successfully implemented is the teacher, who organizes the learning environment for the benefit of the pupils who must experience curriculum. Education can be considered as a major tool for the systematic and sustainable human and material development of nations. It is a priority sector in every well- 3 meaning society. It can be considered as a process of acquiring knowledge, skills, attitudes, interests, abilities, competencies and the cultural norms of a society by transmitting them to the coming generations so as to enhance perpetual development of the society. To actualize the above mentioned educational benefits, curriculum is developed for every school subjects for various educational levels. Recognizing the role of teachers in the implementation of any educational policy, Ebiringa (2012) observed that education may unlock the door to modernization but it is the teacher who holds the key. It is the teacher who determines what happens in the classrooms especially in the social studies classroom. Successful implementation of any educational programme can only be assured through teachers who have acquired necessary competencies in terms of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes. Despite the fact that Social Studies has become over willingly accepted into the Nigerian education system, it is yet to be taught and offered at junior secondary school level to its fullest minimum level like other subjects. This has to do with the fact that Social Studies has been wrongly perceived by some administrators at school level, whereby non-Social Studies specialists are given the course to handled. This hinders the proper implementation of Social Studies curriculum at J.S.S level. This point is in line with the perspectives of many social studies experts like Okam and Nedoso (2006), Mezieobi, Fubara and Mezieobi (2008) among others. It is evident to say that Social Studies is all embracing, as such attention need to be given to its curriculum content, who is expected to handle the courses and the recipient of the knowledge i.e. students. Research has shown that, this important subject is suffering in hands of non-social studies specialists.
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