ABSTRACT
The urge to embark on this study was necessitated by the dire need to find out the “STUDENT-TEACHERS’ CHALLENGES DURING TEACHING PRACTICE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS (A CASE STUDY OF ENUGU STATE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (TECHNICAL), ENUGU.)” Six research questions guided the study. The study was a simple survey research design and the area of the study is Enugu State College of Education, (Technical), Enugu. Simple random sampling was used. The sample size was 150 students from six departments of the Schools of Science Education were used. The main instrument for data collection was the questionnaire. The instrument was structured according to Yes or No, and Yes has minor and major options. The result of data analysis indicated that fourteen major challenges had been found facing student-teachers during teaching practice, they are:- Location of teaching practice school, Finance, Transportation to school of teaching practice, Low academic standard of the students, Difficulty of student-teacher in adapting to pupils level of academic, Indiscipline and rude behaviours of pupils towards student teachers, Lack of attention and interest of learners/pupils, Challenges of individual differences among students/pupils, Extra workload given to student-teacher by school or head of departments, Lack of infrastructure (electricity, water, equipment etc), Extortion of money from student-teacher by the supervisor, Inadequate organization of micro-teaching programme, Time for teaching practice and Poor assessment due to negligence on the part of student-teacher.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
Education is a good instrument for the comprehensive development of the human beings where the whole body is eectively utilized to achieve a pre-determined set of objectives, (A.E. Ejili and N.O. Anyanwu, 2006). It is a complex process which starts to improve out lives as soon as we are born, and continues to do so until we die. According to F.H. Aguba (2006: 58) “The aim of education is the production of good men, that is, for one to be educated, one must be prepared to use the knowledge of what is good and must be prepared to use the knowledge in the service of God and humanity. We can say that, education is a process of acquiring ideas, skills and values that facilitate the development of the learner and the society at large. It is concerned with the development of the society.
The nation recognizes the importance of teacher education when they continued to give a major emphasis in all out educational planning. This is basically because no educational system can rise above the quality of its teachers, that is to say that the quality of the teachers in any country determines the quality of her education and the level of national development. The National Policy on Education of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1998) outlined the purpose of teacher education as follows; a) to produce highly motivated, conscientious effective classroom teacher for all learning in our educational system. b) to encourage further the spirit of enquiry and creativity in teachers; c) to help teachers to fit into the society of the community and the society at large and to enhance their commitment to national objectives; d) to provides teachers with intellectual professional background adequate for assignment and to make them adaptable to any changing situation not only in the life of their country but to the wider world; e) to enhance teachers commitment to the teaching profession.