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European Journal of Social Sciences - Volume 2, Number 1 (2006) Concerns of Nigerian Preservice Teachers and Their Implications for Teacher Education Michael U.C. Ejieh Department of Educational Administration and Planning Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria Sunday A. Makinde Institute of Education Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify the concerns of preservice teachers in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Data for the study were collected with a questionnaire administered to 153 student teachers of the university who were about to proceed on teaching practice exercise. Data analysis revealed that the preservice teachers showed much concern for school location, classroom discipline, pupil-teacher relationships, pupils poor communication skills. In all, they expressed more of self or survival concerns than task concerns with little concern for pupils learning. The implications of the findings for teacher education were highlighted. Introduction Teaching practice or the practicum is an essential component of teacher education programmes. This field experience offers prospective teachers opportunities to put into practice what they have been taught about teaching and also to face some dilemmas of teaching such as handling classroom problems and catering to the needs of both slow and fast learners in the same class. It also gives teacher educators opportunities to address these dilemmas (Harrington, 1995). Prospective teachers’ experiences during teaching practice exercises go a long way towards enhancing or restructuring their understanding of the reality of teaching. Based on such experiences, some of them make up their minds on whether or not to remain in the teaching profession after graduation and for how long they will teach. Some may even drop out of the teacher education programme entirely. Since this activity is crucial in the formation of some prospective teachers’ attitudes towards teaching and their continued or subsequent professional development, their concerns during teaching practice exercises deserve the attention of teacher educators and educational administrators. In this paper, we present the report of a study in which we investigated the concerns of the students following the teacher education programme of one of the first generation universities in southwestern Nigeria. Teacher education in nigeria The federal and state governments of Nigeria are actively engaged in the production of teachers for quality education at the different levels of the educational system. With the launching of the 76
International Research Journal of Finance and Economics – Volume 2, Number I (2006) Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme by the federal government in 1999, training and retraining of teachers for primary and secondary education have received added impetus. While the colleges of education in the country produce teachers mainly for the primary schools, over 32 out of about 60 public and private universities in the country offer teacher education programmes of three or four-year duration, depending on the entry qualifications of the teacher education candidates. Teacher candidates who gain admission into the universities through the University Matriculations Examination follow the four-year programme and do some general studies in the first year before embarking on the professional teacher development aspect of the programme in the second year. The three-year programme is for those with more advanced educational qualifications who gain admission through direct entry and start with professional development programme from their first year of studies. An important component of the teacher education programme is the teaching practice or the practicum. Students in both programmes go for teaching practice twice in the course of their studies. With minor variations among the universities, the first practicum takes place after the first year of professional development studies and the second one takes place a year later. Both of them consist of a six-week teaching block and require full-time commitment of student teachers in secondary schools where they are supervised and their teaching performance is assessed by their university lecturers. The problem Nigerian universities send student teachers in their thousands every year to schools all over Nigeria to acquire field experience in teaching but the concerns of these preservice teachers and even the serving teachers have received little, if any attention by Nigerian educational administrators and university teacher educators. Nor have educational researchers shown any interest in the problem. Consequently, empirical data on the concerns of both preservice teachers and serving teachers are lacking in the country. This study was, therefore, designed to identify the clusters of, and specific concerns of preservice teachers in regard to their teaching practice. The subjects of this study were undergraduate students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. The university, which was founded in 1962, is one of the first generation universities in Nigeria. Since its inception it has been running a teacher education programme for the production of teachers for secondary schools. Like other universities in the country, students following this programme embark on a mandatory six-week teaching practice exercise twice in Parts Two and Three of the programme. Specifically, the study sought answers to the following questions: 1. What are the specific concerns of Obafemi Awolowo University student teachers about teaching practice? 2. What type(s) of concerns are most important to them? 3. Do the concerns of preservice teachers with previous teaching practice experiences differ from those with such experiences? It is expected that the results of this study will be useful to Nigerian educators for the planning and review of teacher education programmes. This kind of study will also be useful to the preservice teachers and school administrators including supervisors, school principals and Ministry of Education personnel, in order to help them to understand the concerns of beginning teachers. Addressing these concerns appropriately will (hopefully) decrease the rate of attrition of teacher candidates as they go through their programmes (O’Connor & Taylor, 1992). Such a study is particularly necessary in the Nigerian context where teaching is an unattractive profession and does not attract academically good candidates for training compared to other professions. This is mainly because teaching continue, to be accorded low social status in Nigeria inspite of the efforts of both state and federal governments to improve the working conditions of civil servants, including teachers, in the country. 77
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