Educational - Ozean Publications

European Journal of Educational Studies 2(2), 2010European Journal of Educational Studies 2(2), 2010ISSN 1946-6331© 2010 Ozean PublicationAN ANALYSIS OF TEACHERS’ UTILIZATION IN URBAN AND RURAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS INMID-WESTERN STATES OF NIGERIAVincent .O. IbadinDepartment of Educational Studies and ManagementUniversity of Benin, Benin City, NigeriaE-mail address for correspondence: vindin_me@yahoo.comAbstract: The study was designed to investigate if teachers in urban and rural secondary schools in Mid-WesternStates of Nigeria, were under utilized or over utilized. It also sought to ascertain if urban secondary school teacherswere more utilized than their rural counterparts. To guide the study three research questions were raised. The studysampled 240 teachers (i.e. 120 teachers each from urban and rural schools). They were selected from 48 sampledpublic secondary schools (i.e. 24 schools each from urban and rural areas). The Public Secondary School Teachers’Utilization Questionnaire (PSSTUQ) was used to collect data. The data gathered were analysed using the formularecommended by the guidelines for the implementation of the 9-3-4 Education System. The study revealed that urbansecondary school teachers had an average weekly workload of 16 periods, while their rural counterparts had 26periods. The rural secondary school teachers were not only adequately utilized but they were more utilized than theurban secondary school teachers.Key words: Education, secondary school, teacher._____________________________________________________________________________________________INTRODUCTIONThe importance of teachers in the education enterprise has been emphasized by philosophers and scholars fromancient times to the present day of science and technology. There is no gain saying the fact that teachers are at thecentre of crisis in the education system of many developing countries, Nigeria inclusive. It is first and foremost aproblem of quality, that is, how best to get large enough quantity of qualified and experienced teachers for the fastexpanding education system. Education is a mass-production and labour intensive enterprise, and as the number ofstudents increases, so does the need for more teachers arise.In Nigeria, the growth of the education system since independence in 1960 has been phenomenal. For example,between 1960 and 1998, primary school enrolment increased from 2,912,619 to 17,942,000 or 516 percent rateincrease. For the same period, secondary school enrolment increased from 55,235 to 6,056,700 or 10,865 percentrate increase; while University enrolment increased from 71,095 to 249,287 or 250.64 percent rate increase between1980 and 1999 (Okobia, 2002).87