EFFECT OF QUALIFICATION OF MATHEMATICS TEACHER AND LOCATION OF SCHOOL ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SENIOR SECONDARY STUDENTS IN EXTERNAL EXAMINATION (A CASE STUDY OF ODEDA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OGUN STATE

CHAPTER ONE

1.0              INTRODUCTION

1.1              Background of the Study

            Teacher competence and qualities are concepts that are often referred to as frequently applied to different educational context. Whitty (2006) identifies professional competence, which includes knowledge and understanding of children and their learning subject knowledge, curriculum, the education system and the teachers role. Professional competence also necessitates skills such as subject application, classroom methodology, classroom management, assessment and recording and undertaking a wider role. Teacher with high competence is one of the most significant factors that manipulate the student learning as well as serving the schools to meet its objectives and missions. The importance of teachers cannot be over stressed. This is because teachers play a number of role specifically, teachers has been referred to be Oyedeji (2008) as an agent of innovation. For meaningful innovations, teachers’ academic qualification is very important.

            This is because teacher education is a very complex enterprise. The complicity arises as a result of several factors which include determination of what effective teachers are, teachers are expected to fulfill a verity of roles, some common to all teachers, others uniquely related to certain kinds of environments of students or subject matter. Added to this is the fact that teacher education involves the raining of professionals who will educate students in future. Despite the complexity in the field of teacher education, one cannot over emphasize the importance of academic training of teachers of all categories. This is because the efficiency of any institution depends on the academic competence of the teaching staff since no educational system can rise above the quality of its teachers (FGN 2005).

            The quality of education of a nation could be determinedby the quality of her teachers. The most important factor in improving students’ achievement in mathematics is by employing seasoned qualified teachers in all schools (Abe and Adu, 2013). Okuruwa (1999) found that, policy investment on quality of teachers is related to improvement in students’ performance.

Abe and Adu (2013) and Wiki (2013) opined that, a teaching qualification or teacher qualification is one of a number of academic and professional degree that enables a person to become a registered teacher in primary or secondary school. Such qualifications include,but are not limited to, the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGDE). The Professional Diploma inEducation (PDE), Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) and Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE). In Ogun State, teachers who are academically qualified and those thatare professionally qualified are engaged to carry out instructional process (Ahiazu and Prince Will, 2011).

Academically qualified teachers refer to those who have academic training as a result of enrolment into educational institution and obtained qualifications such as HND, B.Sc, B.A, and M.A. and so on; while professionally qualified teachers are those who got professional trainingthat gave them professional knowledge, skills, techniques, aptitudes as different from the generaleducation (Edu and Kalu, 2012). They hold degrees like, B.Ed., B.Sc. Ed, B.A. Ed, and M.Ed and so on. On the other hand, there are studies that have found nosignificant relationship between teacher educational qualification and students’ academic achievement. For instance, Igwe (1990) investigated the influence of teacher’s qualification on academic performance of students in science subjects in Kano State. The researcher found no significant relationship between teacher’s qualification and students’ performance. While Adeniji (1999), Osokoya (1999) and Oladele (1999) foundout that teacher’s qualification contributed minimally to the variance with students’ cognitive achievement and Bilesanmi (1999) and Okonwa (1999) found that teacher’s experience was highly significant on students’ academic achievement in mathematics.

For over four decades, series of studies have suggested the importance of school as social environment of learning. Some of these studies examined locational planning and their attendant consequences on achievement of students in various states of the Federation. The studies were intended to assist education authorities of various states to decide where a particular type of school should be located; the size of a school in each location; whether a new school should be built or otherwise among others (Mbakwe, 1986). The World Bank recommended that the following data were needed for rationalizing and drawing up of both the urban and rural school map. Schools which includes physical aspects, site, type of building, usage, capacity, teachers (numbers, qualification, and age); students which include enrollment in school by age, individual data in age, sex, previous schools, home, location of mode transport, time taken in home/school journey, parental background; Rural and Urban Area Data which include land use administrative map on as large a scale as possible, planning reports, settlement patterns and the likes are required. These school locational planning techniques have been reportedly used by a number of countries to solve their educational problems (World Bank Guidelines 1978).

Furthermore, in the assessment of effect of travelling distance among students incommunity secondary schools in relation to the quality of education by Galabawaand Lwaitama (2008) revealed that most of the students arrived at school late, tiredand lost interest in leaning and hence, poor academic performance. Access to qualitySecondary Education is essential for developing active workforce for socioeconomic development. To achieve the high quality workforce, involvement ofeducational stakeholders deems appropriate. In this regard, academic performance ofsecondary school learners at Odeda Town Council-depends heavily onstakeholders‘(local development activists and policy makers) involvement inimproving the quality of learning environment including the location of the school.

Location is defined as the environmental condition around a school, which could be urban or rural (Ezike, 2007). No its context (urban or rural), the location of theschool has been found to be crucial to students` performance in their examinations.Raychaudhuri, Debnath, Sen and Majumder (2010) report a positive relationship thatexists between school location (closer distance to homesteads) and students’academic performance as they attend school regularly. Emore (2005) shares thatdistance to school together with school discipline; family background and schoollocation caused truancy (attendance irregularity) among school students. Distance inassociation with location of the school seems to be one of the strong influencingorigins for the academic performance among students. This was evidenced as well byObemeata (1995) and Obayan (2003) who confirmed that school physicalenvironment exerts dominant influence on students’ academic performance.Most of the ward or commonly known as community secondary schools in Nigeriawere built through decentralization strategy which transferred decision makingauthority from higher authorities to the community members. The strategy mandatedlocal authorities to decide about the location at which a new school was to be built.

Mathematics is a compulsory subject in secondary schools. Due to its importance the government is committed in ensuring the provision of high quality Mathematics education.

The subject ‘Mathematics’ is the numerical and calculation part of man’s life and knowledge. It helps man to give exact interpretation to his ideas and conclusions. It deals with quantitative facts and relationships as well as with problems involving space and form. It also deals with relationship between magnitudes. Mathematics studies order abstracted from the particular objects and phenomena, which exhibit it, and in a generalized form (Saleem& Khalid, 2000). The more the technology is developed the greater the level of mathematical skill is required.

Norton & Debra (2001) stated that teachers who have a good background in Mathematics also add richness to their lessons, involve students’ extensively in mathematical dialogue and capitalize on student’s questions / discussions to weave/ extend mathematical relationships. The world is rapidly transforming itself into a global village, so to face its challenges; the country needs to nurture a computer culture. The importance and need of IT is accepted universally as a pre-requisite and norm for progress and development. The Government of Pakistan has shown its commitment at the highest level of hierarchy to introduce IT in all its operations and in the country. The potential of Information Technology was considered, as the vision of the National Policy (2001-2002) and as a key contributor to the development of Nigeria.

Stuve (2009) explored that learning was affected by certain features of the classroom environment, like the location of the printer in relation to the class and the quality of the computers, as well as how projects were structured and how learning activities were maintained. His argument was that the implementation of technological innovation is socially constructed, with a complex interaction among students, teachers, and the physical and local environments.

Therefore, the study is to investigate the effects of qualification of mathematics and locations of school on the performance of senior secondary school students in External examination (A case study of Odeda Local Government area of Ogun State)