ABSTRACT
This study is on comparative study on academic achievement of school of science in college of education Ilorin. The total population for the study is 200 staff of kwara state college of education, Ilorin. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made heads of department, senior lecturers, junior lecturers and nonacademic staff was used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background of the study
Colleges of Education are among the tertiary institutions that train teachers for the primary, junior and secondary schools in Nigeria. They are in greatest number among teacher training institutions in the country (Nneji, 2012). The Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Policy on Education (2004) proscribes the NCE as the minimum qualification for all teachers in our schools with the aim to produce quality teachers. This is particularly important because the success of any educational system is dependent on the quality of teachers who implement it. The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN, 2004: 39) states that no education system may rise above the quality of the teachers who operate it. Teachers drive educational policies and curricula; if the teacher is weak or incompetent, the result will be weak or dysfunctional educational outcome (Offorma, 2012). This may be the case with the female science teachers produced in Colleges of Education in Nigeria. The implication of this if determined empirically is not good for the country.
Science rules the world. Science education lays foundation to work in science-related fields in acquainting learners with certain knowledge and skills (Olatoye, 2000). The integration of science subjects such as Biology, Chemistry and Physics into the Minimum Standard of Colleges of Education is in recognition of the intrinsic values of these subjects in all spheres of human activity. Their teaching and learning should be such as to produce competent, effective and efficient teachers irrespective of gender who having acquired the requisite skills, should be able to impart same to their pupils/students. However, it has been observed (Arighabu and Mji, 2004), that gender bias is still very prevalent particularly in science. Gender is one of such factors that have considerable effects on students’ academic achievement especially in science subjects (Adigun, Onihunwa, Irunokhai, Sada, and Adesina, 2015).
- STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The importance of Science as a disciplines cannot be over stated. It lays the foundation to other subjects. However, a look at the Junior School Certificate Examination (JSCE) results of some schools in Ilorin reveals that students’ performance in Science shows unimpressive performance of students in Science. There is also the tendency to look after performance of teachers in college of education. The problem of this study therefore is: What must be done to bring about comparatively high academic achievement of school of science in college of education.