TEACHERS AND LABORATORY FACILITIES AVAILABLE IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL FOR EFFECTIVE HOME ECONOMICS TEACHING AND LEARNING

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

1.1    BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Home Economics is one of the Nigerian educational system's required prevocational disciplines offered at the junior secondary level. Home Economics, according to Anyakoha (2007), is a skill-oriented subject of study that is intended to provide learners with survival skills that would enable them to be self-sufficient, gain work, and earn a living. Occupational skills are best defined as a set of resourceful talents that enable an individual to be self-reliant, autonomous, and productive in the face of life's problems. Occupational skills, according to Creese (1976), are life survival abilities that an individual need in order to operate effectively and handle life's problems. Food and nutrition skills, home management skills, and clothing and textile abilities are all occupational skills in Home Economics. Home Economics Education Program enables an individual to study, explore, and prepare for a profession or trade by teaching vocational skills. As a result, Home Economics might play a key role in fulfilling the National Economic and Development Strategy's objectives (NEEDS). These objectives include the production of wealth, the creation of jobs, the reduction of poverty, the elimination of corruption, and a general reorientation of values. Home Economics programs at tertiary schools encounter significant hurdles. Teachers become irritated when there are little or no facilities available to teach and do practicals. When this happens, the products are found wanting when they are dispatched to the job market because they have not comprehended the course material and course work thoroughly and confidently (Maxime, 2002). Lack of facilities has been a serious issue, and students must purchase the majority of these products on their own. Because of these issues, Home Economics is relatively costly in higher schools (Flock 1974). Anyakoha (2005), confirming the government's neglect of vocational and technical education, stated that a lack of modern equipment has been a major issue, as students read more about sophisticated equipment and have no opportunity to explore such equipment for first-hand information, instead relying on pictures in books. Anyakoha (2007) complained that work in the Home Economics Department has become tedious as a result of the combination of other courses, making it difficult to plan field trips, visits to industries, institutions, and organizations where these equipment can be found to aid learning and facilitate class room work. Students and lecturers are clinging to the old laboratories and out-of-date facilities due to a lack of funds and aid from the government and donor agencies to help build more practice houses, modern equipped food laboratories, textiles and sewing rooms, spacious demonstration centers, and lecture halls. The library facilities are inadequate, volumes are scarce, and the few books that are available are outdated, making research and learning difficult for students. It is clear from the continuing that Home Economics Education has not been given the same prominence as other professions in the march toward our country's development (Esther, 2004). We live in a world where science and technology have grown inextricably linked to global culture. With Nigeria's high unemployment rate, good training in the primary areas of home economics would ensure that individuals have a functioning and productive life that contributes to national progress (David, 2001). The purpose of this study is to look at the issues of a lack of instructors and laboratory facilities for successful home economics teaching and learning in junior secondary schools in Rafi (a case study of Rafi  L.G.A)

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Home Economics is a skill-oriented subject of study that is intended to provide learners with self-reliance, employment, and paid work skills. Occupational skills are best defined as a set of resourceful talents that enable an individual to be self-reliant, autonomous, and productive in the face of life's problems. Occupational skills, according to Creese (1976), are life survival abilities that an individual need in order to operate effectively and handle life's problems. Food and nutrition skills, home management skills, and clothing and textile abilities are all occupational skills in Home Economics. Home Economics Education Program enables an individual to study, explore, and prepare for a profession or trade by teaching vocational skills. As a result, Home Economics might play a key role in fulfilling the National Economic and Development Strategy's objectives (NEEDS). These objectives include the production of wealth, the creation of jobs, the reduction of poverty, the eradication of corruption, and a general shift in values. Despite these admirable aspects of Home Economics as a talent, it faces a number of obstacles that prevent it from being one of the paths to national transformation. Some of these issues include the Federal Government's ambivalent attitude toward vocational and technical education programs in Nigerian universities in general, society's perception of graduates of Home Economics as those who could not fit into any other challenging course, a lack of candidates' interest in the program because it is expensive, and insufficient manpower to teach Home Economics at the junior and senior secondary school levels; as well as frustration (Janik, 2006). The goal of this study is to look into the availability of instructors and laboratory facilities for efficient home economics teaching and learning in junior secondary schools in Rafi (a case study of Rafi LGA of Niger State)

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

i. To figure out what Home Economics is all about.

ii. To establish the characteristics of effective Home Economics instruction.

iii. To investigate the availability of instructors and laboratory facilities in Rafi LGA for successful Home Economics instruction in junior secondary schools.

1.3   RESEARCH QUESTIONS

i.  What is Home Economics  all about?

ii. What are  the characteristics of effective Home Economics instruction?

iii. What is the availability of instructors and laboratory facilities in Rafi LGA for successful Home Economics instruction in junior secondary schools?

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The paper proposes a research methodology for the creation and implementation of policies to address the issues of teacher and laboratory availability for successful Home Economics teaching in junior secondary schools.

It also acts as a resource for students, teachers, and home economics professionals.

1.6   SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study examines the availability of instructors and laboratory facilities for efficient Home Economics instruction in junior high school.

1.7    DEFINITION OF TERMS

DEFINITION OF HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS

Home Economics was approved as one of the vocational topics in the junior secondary school curriculum by the Nigerian Education Research and Development Council (NERDC) in 2007. This course is designed to give students a foundation of information, skills, and attitudes about numerous elements of family life. It is intended to help students connect fundamental information with skills and to introduce them to a variety of options for effective homemaking. According to NERDC (2007), students in Home Economics at the junior secondary level should strive to attain the following goals: • Contribute to a healthy family environment

• Develop healthy and aesthetic values, attitudes, and skills, as well as the ability to adapt to changing environments. • Develop a spirit of inquiry and scientific approach to everyday living, as well as an appreciation for the dignity of labor.

DEFINITION OF RETENTION

The capacity to own, utilize, and maintain knowledge, as well as the ability to replicate prior events or previously familiar items, is referred to as retention. Many of the memories that people believe are not remembered were never stored in the long-term memory system.

DEFINITION OF THE LECTURE METHOD

According to Blair (2007), the lecture approach is the most popular teaching style, yet it does not promote critical thinking, creative thinking, or problem solving. It enables the student to get a large amount of information. The lecture style does not encourage pupils to be creative, inquisitive, or scientific. It helps kids to memorize easily forgotten knowledge.

DEFINITION OF TEACHING

Teaching is a form of creation, with the human personality as the end result. Teaching is described as a systematic action undertaken by a teacher with the intention of assisting the student in acquiring the desired information, skills, and values, as well as receiving the appropriate feedback.

DEVELOPMENT DEFINED

Development is the process of something becoming more advanced and powerful through time. This means that development entails a gradual or progressive change or progression, which some scholars view as multidimensional, encompassing changes in structures, attitudes, and institutions, as well as the acceleration of economic growth, the reduction of inequality, and the education of absolute poverty.

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