The pupils’ questionnaire was focused on finding out such information as pupils’ liking for school, interest in school subjects, topics of interest in mathematics as science, possession of textbooks and opportunity to learn at home, including coaching classes.

• Overwhelming majority of the sampled pupils (95.7 percent) indicated their liking for school. The very few who did not like school gave the problem of fighting among pupils and punishment from teachers as reasons for not liking school.
• The main reason for being absent from school if and when they do, is sickness. As high as 89 percent of public school pupils and 84 percent of pupils in rural areas gave this as the main reason. The other important reason given by pupils for absenteeism was teacher being on strike.
• The three subjects that pupils liked best were English (64.3 percent), Mathematics (53. 4 percent) and Reading (39.4 percent). The three common reasons for liking the subjects are ‘teacher teaches well’ (30.7 percent) ‘subject is not difficult’ (30.5 percent) ‘subject will help in gaining admission to secondary schools’ (25.1 percent).
• Most pupils did not have textbooks in most school subjects expect in English where about half of them had textbooks. In fact, 12.2 percent of the pupils indicated that they lacked textbooks in all subjects.
• Most of the pupils (78 percent) receive at least one hour of extra coaching a day after school.

5. Teachers’ Questionnaire Response

The effect of the teacher on both the quantity and quality of instrument that takes place in the classroom seems obvious. But it also seems equally obvious that it is not everything about the teacher that is likely to be related to pupils’ learning. The teachers’ questionnaire was directed at finding out information about the teacher which could influence pupils’ learning - qualification and experience, amount of instructional materials made available of the teacher, amount of supervision he/she receives from the head teacher and the level of morale. The following is a summary of the responses of the teachers sampled:

A very proportion (80 percent) of the teacher in the sample had either Teachers Grade II certificate or the Nigeria Certificate in Education while only about 10 percent had no teaching qualification. The teachers had an average of eleven years of teaching experience and most of them had been teaching primary four in their current school for at least three years.

• Seventy percent of the teachers reported that their head teachers went round at least once a day to see what was going on in their classes while 96.7 percent reported that their lesson notes were checked by either the head teacher or the assistant. This checking was done daily in 64.1 percent of cases and weekly in 34.9 percent of cases.
• In the provision of instructional materials, 63.3 percent and 59.3 percent of the teachers had copies of the pupils’ textbooks in English and Mathematics, respectively, while only 37. 9 percent and 34.4 percent had the corresponding teachers’ guide for these subjects. Some of the teachers had neither the pupils’ textbook nor the teachers’ guide; specifically, 34.1 percent of the teachers did not have teachers’ guide; specifically, 34.4 percent of the teachers had neither the pupils’ textbook nor the teachers’ guide for any of the school subjects.
• The five most important issues reported by the teachers as sources of discouragement to teachers were "no regard for teachers", "poor condition of service", irregular payment of teachers’ salaries", "poor salaries", "no teaching facilities/materials". Poor condition of service and irregular payment of salaries were reported by 62.0 percent and 57.9 percent respectively. Arising from this, it is not surprising that 82.1 percent of the teachers felt that one of the things that could be done to make teaching more attractive is the prompt payment of salaries followed by regular promotion (66.6 percent) and provision of instructional materials (54.3 percent).

6. School Questionnaire Response

The information collected at school level was those, which can be used to look at the physical and human environment, provided for learning to take place. Such information included the qualification of the leadership of the school, the level of instructional materials, the level of staffing and financial provision etc. The head teachers of the sampled schools completed the questionnaires.

• The sampled schools had 78 percent male head and 22 percent female head teachers. Most of the head teachers 61.5 percent were in the rural locations. The highest academic qualification of the head teachers was the Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) (49.6 percent) followed by (18.6 percent) with the Associateship Certificate in Education (ACE) and (22.6 percent) with Teacher’s Grade II Certificate.
• Most schools were still owned by government (81.4 percent), private individuals, (6.7 percent) and religious organizations (5.2 percent)
• The clientele of the schools were still predominantly farmers (61.0 percent) followed by civil servants (40.1 percent) and traders (21.2 percent).
• The average class size of the schools was 40.
• Chalk board and chalk were the only materials reported as being adequately available by the schools. There were very few schools reporting availability of charts/posters (15.1 percent) maps (13.3 percent), elementary science equipment (8.4 percent), games and sporting equipment (5.0 percent).
• Many schools reported having school Diary (48.0 percent), while fewer had rooms for science (5.1 percent), Home Economics (6.9 percent), and Art (4.7 percent).
• The problem arising from parents in most schools was failure to provide learning materials for their ward (63.7 percent), general lack of interest (27.4 percent), and withdrawal of pupils from school (22.9 percent).
• Most schools (over 80 percent), had Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA). These Associations help with the provision and maintenance of furniture, building and equipment and fund raising activities.

6. Parents Questionnaire Response

• Parents set the tone of an enabling home environment for pupils to achieve in schoolwork. There are some characteristics of the home, which can potentially affect pupils school achievement positively: such as level of education of the parents, intellectually stimulating facilities available in the home; opportunities provided in the home for extra lessons etc.
• About 73percent of mothers and 80 percent of fathers have had at least primary education. Only 18.9 percent and 26.2 percent of fathers and mothers respectively had no formal education. The modal level of education of both mothers and fathers was the First School Leaving Certificate.
• The predominant occupation of fathers was farming (40.4percent), and for mothers petty trading (35.0 percent).
• Almost 60 percent of the homes had access to radio sets while only about 29.1 percent had access to Television.
• Only about 40 percent of the homes had electricity supply while 54.2 percent had kerosene lamps as their source of light supply. Very few homes had pipe borne water (28.9 percent), while 44.3 percent got their water supply from wells and 32.5 percent from streams. All facilities have implication for their level of school achievement.
• Most homes reported providing uniforms (84.7 percent), exercise books (68.9percent), and writing materials (64.9 percent), for their children while less than 50.0 percent of homes provided text books in any of the subjects.
• Some of the issues about which parents expressed displeasure included inadequate teaching facilities (25.6percent), and over crowded classrooms (11.7 percent).
• Most parents (67.5percent) arranged for extra lessons/coaching for their children after school hours.

3. Factors that were facilitatory to execution of the MLA study

1. The Project Proposal

A well articulated Proposal is Prerequisite to an Unencumbered and Smoothly Executed Study. The project proposal was produced with assistance from two experts in Education Evaluation and Measurement and Testing. One of the Two `Wole Falayajo a renowned professor of National Assessments was retained as the lead consultant to the project. This proved to be advantageous. The quality of the draft proposal was considered so impressive that UNESCO accorded Nigeria the privilege as the first developing country to monitor its own MLA study.

2. Constituting a Co-ordinating Committee.

A well-constituted team should provide a repertoire of expertise useful at different stages of implementation. Membership of the National Co-ordinating Committee was constituted to include national institutions involved in the administration and management of primary education. Representative of these institutions and other resource persons from Universities and related bodies provided a wide range of relevant expertise. This facilitated target attainment.

3. Selecting the target for instrumentation.

With limited financial resource, the selection of any Primary level for which instruments are to be developed and administered, should be based on carefully defined criteria. Primary IV was selected as target for the Nigerian study, because using any lower level, would have necessitated the translation of the test items into more than 270 local languages. This would have had enormous cost implication. In the same vain, pupils in the upper class; Primaries V and VI which are essentially `terminal' levels, are generally exposed to extra out-of-school coaching, preparatory to sitting competitive, selective examination, into secondary schools which would have introduced other factors outside school learning into performance levels.

7.2.8 B Other types of assessment:

Nigeria as a Country has evolved Policy on Education which is geared towards achieving identified national objectives. For the policy objectives to be realised, several approaches have been identified and suggested. One of these is the use of Continuous Assessment in schools upon which emphasis have been placed. The following extracts may perhaps state the better:

Under the broad heading of Secondary Education, the Policy orientation of the Government on Continuous Assessment is stated in the following words:

From the foregoing, it becomes clear that Government has placed special premium on Continuous Assessment practice in Schools. This shift from the existing practice to a new one must have been informed by the fact that Government had become sufficiently aware of the demerits of the system. With the above policy, centrally set examinations are no longer in use in primary schools. However, challenges Continuous Assessment in Nigeria is faced with numerous problems, some of which are listed below:

Lack of understanding of

Meaning of Continuous Assessment

Methods of data collection

instrument

administration of instruments

collection of data

Processing of such data for meaningful interpretation

statistical approaches.

Students population

Leads to poor assessment procedure

no more essays

mathematics are not graded

assignments are not given

1. Graded cards are no longer in use
2. Individuals teaching is no longer possible

1. Teacher Factor

1. inadequate payment of salaries
2. no refresher courses
3. no motivation generally

1. We see assessment as a secondary issue
2. Schools return 80 – 90% for all candidates
3. Alteration of scores which go to examination bodies
4. Late submission of data

1. Monitoring by School Authorities

1. School principals
2. Inspectorate division –no equipment to monitor

1. Equipment as a problem

1. cabinet for files
2. computer for processing or lack of knowledge of computer
3. lack of working materials for pupils

PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

The National Policy on Education has prescribed that the new minimum qualification required for teaching in the primary school is the National Certificates in Education. A situation and Policy Analysis Study was conducted in 1991 to 1992. The primary objective of the study was to elucidate empirically factors that affect quality and access to basic education. The findings highlighted the problems that plague the primary education system, one of which is the quality of teachers.

The problem of teacher qualification became more pronounced when in 1992 the Nigerian government introduced the 9 year schooling which required every child that enrolled for primary education to remain in school until the end of the three years of junior secondary school. Because there was no legislative backing and financial backing the policy did not take off as planned. The minimum qualification required for primary school teaching used to be Teachers Certificate Grade II (TCGDII) which was awarded by the National Teacher Institute. The minimum entry qualification for any teacher training programme is WASC/GCE O’LEVEL. One year training in advance pedagogy and school administration qualified one as a Teacher Certificate Grade II (TC.GII). TC.GII still remains as teaching qualification, but the holders of these certificates are provided opportunities to upgrade their qualification to a National Certification of Education before the expiration of the period when no teacher with a qualification below National Certification in Education will be allowed to teach in any school in Nigeria. However, the National Council on (NCE), which is the highest policy reference point in Education, as a first step, has ordered that the employment of grade II teachers be stopped in favour of the numerous unemployed NCE holders who are without job. The table below shows the teacher situation in the primary schools in Nigeria. The general practice is that a teacher teaches all the arm of a class. NCE teachers are being trained to meet this task by including in their curriculum courses in Primary Mathematics, English Language, Social Studies and Primary Science. B.Ed (Pry) census are also being offered in some conventional universities.

Table 29

SOURCE: FEDERAL MIMISTRY OF EDUCATION,

STATISTICS DIVISION, ABUJA, NIGERIA