INFLUENCE OF TEACHERS’ VARIABLES AND PUPILS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1              Background to the Study

Education is widely regarded as a basic human right, a key to enlightenment and a source of wealth and power. Education is critical to industrial and technological development, with the history of developed nations bearing records of this, developing nations aspiring to realize the same status have to put a premium. Education is an investment in the human being, the investment and characteristic of education given by the society can easily be assessed by the quality of its products. The input is assessed by the output Denga (2010).

Over the years, education has been ranked as the best legacy any conscientious leader, government, or parent could leave for his/her people. This is increasingly important because the quality of education given to a people determined the standard of growth achieved. This anchor the Federal Government stated that education has been adopted as an instrument par excellence for effective national development (FRN, 1984).

The teacher is the major manpower saddled with the responsibility of impacting the concept considered fundamental to technology through teaching; the teacher is the pivot upon which the educational process revolves Sampson (2012). This is because the teacher is expected to have what the learners do not have and should be able to cause the learners under him or her to always desire to increase their want of what the teacher has until they want of what the teacher has until they are almost like the teacher. According to Waller (2012), “teachers are paid agent of cultural diffusion hired to carry into dark places” while Hargreaves (2010), on his contribution refers to teachers as “communicators who delve into the Centre of our cultural arena”, Waller’s conception of the teacher is worthy of note. Teachers are perceived as the culture-bearing groups since they deal with selected knowledge, which has been found worthy of being transmitted from generation to generation. Although, everyone is capable of learning something but certainly not everything, for light is brought to ‘dark place when the teacher introduces new knowledge, ideas and concept to his pupils this is what Waller refers to as ‘dark places’. These views are descriptive and tend to amplify who and the role of the teachers as a member of society. On the whole, a teacher is effective to the extent that he causes learning to occur among his or her learners with minimum efforts from the learners. An effective teacher is a competent and committed teacher. The teacher is competent to the extent that he can analyze different teaching behaviours, distil from their specific skills and formulate these into usable strategies of classroom instrument. The teacher must be a master of his teaching subject area, that is he or she should be seen to share, transmit and transfer meaningfully the valuable knowledge and experiences of his or her expertise to the pupils so that they can analyze and interpret such encoded lessons.

Ali (2010) observes that there was statistically significant influence between teachers’ variables and pupils’ academic performance. Adeyemo (2009) noted that teacher variable such as qualification and years of experience influence the academic performance of pupils in the school. The teacher variables found to be dominant in cross-country studies are related to qualification, experience, attitude and personality. Akinsolu (2011) asserts that the availability of qualified teachers determined the performance of pupils in schools. He emphasizes that teachers involved in in-service training were more effective in the classroom as compared to a teacher who had not undergone training. Wirth and Perkins (2013) indicate that the teacher’s attitude directly affect pupils attitude on teacher year of experience, Adu (2007) contend that teachers’ variables are strong determinants of pupils performance in schools. For pupils to be able to make a connection between what is taught in school and its application in problem-solving in real life, the teacher has to be effective in their teaching. There has been no consensus on the importance specific teacher variables leading to the common conclusion that the existing empirical evidence does not find a strong role for teachers in the determination of investigation the influence of the teacher variables on pupils’ academic performance in Basic science.

1.2              Statement of the Problem

Poor academic performance of pupils in school has been linked to poor teachers’ performance in terms of accomplishing the teaching task, negative attitude to work and poor teaching habits which have been attributing to poor motivation. It has been observed that conditions that would make for the effective teacher such as resource available to teachers, the general condition of infrastructure, as well as instructional materials in public primary schools, are poor (Oredein, 2010). These prevailing conditions would definitely show a negative influence on the instructional quality in public schools which may translate to poor academic performance, attitude and values of primary school teachers.

1.3                 Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of teachers’ variables and pupils’ academic performance in primary schools in Itu Local Government Area.

Specifically, the study aims at:

i.        determining the extent to which teachers’ qualification influence pupils’ academic Performance in primary schools.

ii.      Finding out the influence of teachers’ years of experience on pupils’ academic performance in primary schools.

iii.    Investigating the influence of teachers’ communication skills on pupils’ academic performance in primary schools. 

1.4              Research Questions

In order to guide the study, the following questions were posed:

i.                    To what extent do teachers; qualification influence pupils’ academic performance in primary schools?

ii.                  To what extent do teachers’ years of experience influence pupils’ academic performance in primary schools?

iii.                How do teachers’ communication skills influence pupils’ academic performance in primary schools?

1.5              Research Hypotheses

In order to guide the study, the following research hypotheses were postulated:

i.        There is no significant influence between teachers qualification and pupils’ academic performance in primary schools.

ii.      There is no significant influence between teachers’ years of experience and pupils’ academic performance in primary schools.

iii.    There is no significant influence between teachers’ communication skills and pupils’ academic performance in primary schools.

1.6       Significance of the Study

The study will be significant in the following ways to the following people:

i.        It will help in sensitizing teachers on the need to examine their variables towards teaching and learning in primary schools.

ii.      It will help the government on the need to provide adequate instructional materials for the teaching and learning in primary schools.

iii.    It will help serve as reference materials to other researchers who may want to carry out research in the same or similar topic.

1.7       Limitation of the study

Apart from time constraint and lack of finance, the research work posted a great challenge to the researcher in the inability to cover the whole public primary schools in Itu Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State due to its large land-mass.

1.8       Delimitation of the Study

The study was restricted to examine the influence of teachers’ variables and pupils’ academic performance in primary schools in Itu Local Government Area. The study focuses on teachers’ qualification, years of experience and communication skill on pupils’ academic performance in primary schools in the study area.

1.9       Definition of Operational Terms

Teacher: is a person involves in an attempt to instruct to bring about desirable changes in human learning ability and behaviour. Also, he or she that passes knowledge, skills, attitudes or models of conducts in such a way that the learner is brought to understand and evaluate the underlying rationale for what is presented to him or simply a person who instructs or teach an individual.