CHAPTER ONE

 INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the Study

Staff training must be based on a need analysis derived from a comparison of actual performance and behavior with required performance and behavior. Staff training is one of the major ways organization invests in the workforce for greater return today and even in the foreseeable future.

Organizational effectiveness rests on the efficient and effective performance of workforce that makeup the organization. The efficient and effective performance of the workforce in turn, rest on the richness of the knowledge, skills and abilities possessed by the workforce. In - service training in most organizations is a continuous act/exercise. The inexorable march of time and the ceaseless glamour for social change combine to make adaptability and continuing preparation of the workforce as inevitable as the initial acquisition of knowledge and skills. This cannot happen if employees training do not occur in an enterprise. In other to maximize the productivity and efficiency of the organization, every executive, manager or supervisor in a public or private organization has the responsibility and indeed the bounding duty to ensure the development of their employees who have requisite knowledge and expertise.

Training is like sharpening an existing skill in order to reflect the trends in technology and other social –cultural environmental changes of an organization. Productivity is the goal of today’s competitive business world and training can be a spring board to enhance productivity. The aim is to enable them contribute their full measure to the welfare, health and development of the organization (Onah 1993). The main objective of training and development in service organization is to increase efficiency of employees with the resulting increase in corporate productivity. This accounts for why a large number of fund and time is expected by organization at one period or the order in the improvement of the skills of their employees at various levels.

The principal intention of training according to Akpan (1982:128), is to equip people with the knowledge required to qualify them for a particular position of employment, or to improve their skills and efficiency in the position they already hold. Staff training therefore, improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the employee.

Teachers, like other professionals, may have to continue their education after they qualify, a process known as continuing professional development. Therefore, the research tends to examine the impact of in-service training on teachers performance in secondary in Nigeria with reference to selected secondary schools in Keffi of Nasarawa State.

1.2     Statement of the Problem

The teaching profession has not had defined career path and this has had a lot of implications for conditions of service, performance and personnel development. The way teachers teach has direct impact on the learning outcomes. Therefore, investment in teachers is critical in achieving quality education. Teachers in active service are expected to grow continuously through upgrading, refresher courses, induction, ethical and moral training, workshops, seminars and or research.

Despite the fact that the ministry, the government authorities and school managers in government aided secondary schools in Nigeria are required to offer training for their staff at different levels, this has not been given due attention in some schools. This has led to lack of morale among the teachers, inability to teach new subjects they never qualified for like entrepreneurship, lack of quality assurance procedures and strategies in the orientation to and implementation of new syllabus, teachers funding them for training in fields not related to teaching profession and increased absenteeism from duty. It is only unfortunate that there is no study that has been carried out to establish the impact of training on teachers ‘work behavior.

  1.3   Purpose of the study

`      The purpose of this study includes the following:

i.                   To examine the relationship between in-service training programme and teachers pedagogical skills in secondary schools.

ii.                 To ascertain the relationship in service training of teachers and academic performance of students in secondary schools.

1.4     Significance of study

The research study shall be significant in a number of ways.

In the first place, it is understood that investigation into this broad area of study will exposed so many things hitherto dominant facts and which previous researchers in this field has failed to investigated. This analysis will therefore help in the small way to a better understanding of in service training programme especially as it’s relate to teachers productivity in secondary schools in Nasarawa State

Secondly, the utilization of the basic tenets of this research study in general and the body of facts in particular will to a very far extent enhance a government efforts towards ensuring a systematic re-training programmes for teachers currently in secondary schools across the country in general and Federal Government College Keffi in particular.

It will also add inputs to government efforts in ensuring sound more effective and efficient teachers that will improve the falling standard of education in the society as well as contribute to high academic performance of students in secondary schools which variably will be leaders in different capacities of human endeavors.

Furthermore, the study will assist policy makers and educational planners to fashioning a more variable, teaching and learning environment and an educational system that will enable the country to free the currently challenge of globalization with its emphasis on professionalism and increase productivity.

Finally, the study will be beneficial to students and researchers a like as it will contribute to the existing literature in order to add to the body of knowledge in this field, and to the researchers, it will provide inputs into their studies and hence increase their knowledge.

1.5     Research questions

The following research question has been formulated to guide the study.

i.                   Does in service training programme improve teacher’s pedagogical skills?

ii.       Does in service training of teacher lead to improved academic performance of students in secondary schools?

 1.6    Research hypotheses

The following hypotheses have been formulated and will be tested at 0.05 level of significance appropriate statistical tool analysis.

i.                               There is no significant relationship between in-service training programme and teacher improved pedagogical skills in secondary schools.

ii.                             There are no significant relationships between in service training of teachers and high academic performance of students in secondary schools.      

1.7   Assumptions

In this study the following assumptions were made:-

i.                   Poor standard of education in the country is a tone indication of teacher’s low productivity.

ii.                 The poor scores of the promotion examination for the previous academic years are true indicator of teacher low productivity.

iii.              An in service programme for teachers will lead to more knowledge and skill acquisition and an improve productivity.

iv.              The data collected from each of the subject through the use of research instrument (records an questionnaire) were accurate and variable.

1.8   Scope and Delimitation of the study

For the purpose of the study the researcher has limited the study to secondary schools in Keffi metropolis of Nasarawa State. Generally, every research study like all other investigation both public and private is often bedecked with numerous constraints.

This particularly work is not an exemption, thus many administrative bottle necks posed severe threat to the continuity of the study.

The geographical distance between the various schools in the area of the research constituted serious transportation problem.

The study has been inheritably hindered by the lean purse and economic depression that bite seriously on the researchers.

    1.9          Definition of terms

In-service Training

According to the United State of America Department of Education (1985) in service training is a system of systematized activities promoted and directed by the school system that contribute to the professional or occupational growth and competence of staff members during the time of their service to the school system.

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