REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
This chapter captures and reviews the existing literature related to the research topic. The chapter will be analyzed under the following sub-themes:
The concept of decline of standard
Determinants and research for falling standard of education
Resolving the problem of falling standard of education
Effect of teacher qualification
Effect of instructional materials
Effect of teaching experience
Summary and uniqueness of the study.
The concept of declining standard
The new international websites comprehensive dictionary of the English language, encyclopedia edition defined the word decline as “To refuse to accept, comply with, or do something, especially politely”.
Many writers have written concerning declining the concept of declining standard of education in different dimensions. Some agreed that, there is a decline in standard while others disagreed.
To Jayda (1987) The standard of education in Nigeria is declining and is erroneous if one is to consider the general meaning of the concept of education. He further says that the education could be seen beyond its ordinary role in the child’s mental development.
To Henry (2002) Government and parents are responsible persons in the declining standard of education in Nigeria.
Determinants and reason for falling standard of education
Many reasons have been responsible for the decline in standard of education as opined by many government officials and writers opined that the decline is as a result of teacher’s non-challent attitude towards their job, where most of them combined teaching with trading.
To Governor Razaki (1985) it is due to incompetence and divided interest and discipline”. His view was supported by some people while others did not.
To Fagbami (1988:184) also passed his own views on the falling standard of education which he says; “for the past fifteen years, the academic standard have been adduced for this apparent fall in the standard”. He then said, the general public believes that standard have fallen because teachers have not been doing their work as conscientiously as they should. Yet teachers quality has not appreciably improved over the last two decades where as
students population has continued to increase. Enrolment figures were said to be high with about 140,000 teachers (National Teachers Institute, 1976).
He further says “The teaching profession has certainly not been very attractive in this country with the result that many teachers have only used the profession as a way through which other profession will be gotten. He concluded that, the quality of education is unlikely to be very high when many teachers are either untrained or poorly trained, where many teachers have at first opportunity, where those who remained are constantly blamed for results which they are not fully responsible.
To Fagbamigbe (1982) opened that, one of the handicaps of our educational system is teachers poor motivation which resulted into poor incentives from the government and depressed condition of service. Again most secondary school teachers are not qualified enough as to effectively carryout the responsibility left in their hands in order to ensure success and efficiency in school. There is this general belief that the teaching profession requires no special skills, therefore diploma holders, certificate holders, and degree holders in other fields are employed as teachers to man the secondary schools without question.
To Aka (1986) has a contradictory view to that of Governor Razaki. Although Aka, supported Razaki’s view that there is harm when teachers fail to do their jobs, the way it is expected to be done.
Experience had show that most of the secondary schools in Maru local government have few teachers as graduates. Some teachers who studied sciences, either National Certificate of Education (NCE) level or its equivalent are employed to teach English language and other arts subjects, such as Hausa, History and so on. These who studied arts in some cases teach sciences depending on the problem of the school.
According to Aka, about 30 years ago, it was a pride for a father to say, “my son is a teacher; but today it is more or less a social stigma for a man to introduce himself in any social function or societal gathering as a teacher. Teachers today doesn’t tell landlords that they are one, if one mistakenly tell the landlord that he is a teacher, he stands the chance of losing that rental house.
From the foregoing, it would appear that the major causes of the decline in the standard of education are overcrowded classrooms, poor and overcrowd classrooms Poor and haphazard inspection of school by the ministry of education, Lack of related textbooks and instructional materials at all levels of education, as well as Lack of systematic planning at state and local level, Lack of employment for those that pass out with bright result, this make the students to be discouraged in concentrating on their studies while in schools. All these forces have resulted in one major through the declining quality of the standard of our education al system.
Resolving the problem of falling standard
It is believe that many ways can be used in solving the problems of falling standard of education in Nigeria which will lead to improvement in the system of education.
To talk of teachers, some methods of motivation among workers are attractive salaries, annual leave, promotion opportunities and in service training with aimed of equipping the employee with modern technique of performing his duties. The more enough motivation and incentives are given to the teachers by the concerned authority, there is every possibility that standard education will be maintained by the teachers.
Fagbami (1982) suggested that, teachers that are well trained whose have a sense of mission should be the ones to be employed and deployed to schools and not that of intents during the teaching process. According to him a teacher must be well educated in himself, knowledgeable in his subject, in terms of mastering the subject matter of his subject as well as strategies of teaching his subject. He further viewed that, without trained and knowledgeable teachers, dedicated as well as government consideration teachers salaries and other conditions of the jobs, the sector will be going determinate forever.
The principals have role to play regarding this issues. The principals should find a way of encouraging punctual teachers by given them privileges
of attending seminars, workshops, conferences and other related events in order to make them exemplary to unpunctual staff.
Ayigbe (1986) opined that the utilization of Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) has to be maintained, because, cordial relationship between parents and teachers will pave the ways of joining hands in improving the standard of education.
Base on the above mentioned problems, the following key points can improve the standard of education in our schools:
Only professional teachers should teach and untrained teachers should help to become a professional
Teachers councils should be improved and maintained for the standardization of the profession
Adequate number of trained councilors and inspectors should be provided in all secondary school
Teachers privileges and incentives should be given by the government
Cardinal relationship and consultation between parents and teachers should be maintain
Universities and colleges of education should take up the responsibilities of teachers training re-training of teachers as well as given solutions to various challenges that may cripple the sector
Effect of teaching qualification
The needs for professionalism in teaching sector should be of real emphasis. This will promote teacher in the formulation and implementation of educational policy in the country. The need of qualified teachers in any particular subject was written clearly in the National Policy on Education revised edition 2004 at Act 70(b) “the minimum qualification for entry into the teaching profession shall be the Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE).
Anuforo (2007) sees teaching as a process of transmitting knowledge, information, skills, values and other aspects of human culture from one generation to another. It is process of initiating young members of the society into the way of life of their community, and equipping them with the knowledge and skills required for performing certain roles in the society. Muhammad, (2012) emphasized that, qualified teacher must have the skills training and qualification for the teaching his major subject. Finally, qualified teachers we mean such teachers that attended training and acquired a teaching qualification such as: Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE), or Bachelor of Education (B.A.Ed).
Effect of instructional materials
Instructional materials can be seen as didactic materials; things which are suppose to make learning possible (Obanya, 1989).
Abdullahi (1982) said, teaching materials are tools locally made or imported that could make tremendous enhancement of lesson impact it intelligently used. Isola (2010) referred to them as object or devices which help the teacher to make lesson much clearer to the learner.
Nwankwo, (1983) said teaching aids help greatly by appealing to different senses, tend to facilitated learning. Mayason (1969) pointed out that, if learning process is to be successful, textbooks and materials are desirable. Fadauye (1972) stated that, there is no teaching when learning is not taking place, it has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that, student generally tend to remember much of what they do, some what they see, hear and less of what they hear only. Anuforo (2007) sees instructional materials as channels through which message; information, ideas and knowledge are conveyed and disseminated.
Lastly, availability of teaching materials will develop the interest of teachers to ensure that the lesson should be understood by the students. And will help the teacher to impact the central knowledge of each topic to the students rather than less non central.
Summary and uniqueness of the study
Lastly, from the related literature given in this chapter, the declining standard of secondary education and educational sector as a whole was as a result of poor incentives to teachers, government attitude, parents and student
laxity towards education. All these factors are responsible for the declining standard of education.
From the foregoing, it appears that most of our educationalist neglected some areas that causes poor performance of students in which this study will concentrate on how it affect the student performance. These include, lack of employment for most of the people as well as problems caused by parents of the pupils. This study is unique, because, to the best of our knowledge, none have ever written on the declining aspect such as this one.