CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Teachers ‟effectiveness has been theorized as important to students performance (Darling Hammond, 2010), According to Darling Hammond effective teachers have improved subject matters knowledge, are capable of designing and deliver instruction, can better manage and evaluate classrooms and can better support student learning. Other scholar such as Clotfelter, Ladd and Vigdor (2007) suggested that effective teacher use new teaching strategies pay more attention to student learning and use assessment to change their practice. These scholars insist in order teacher to be eective on students’ performance is supposed to use modern teaching and learning methods like in Nigeria system of education now days insist the use of competent base curriculum which is being implement in primary schools which emphasis the development of certain specific key competences relate with pupils learning environment and to make sure teaching in the class widening and deepening mental horizon of the student, in addition to that assessment is done to know the student‟s progress in academic matters.
Several scholars have tried to describe characteristics of effective teacher. Some have pointed to commitment and drive for improvement (Slavin et al.1995), zero tolerance for failure (Anderson and Pellicer, 1998) and still others describe effective teachers as those with high confidence in what they do. Ashton and Webb (1986) for example, identified effective teachers as those with self-efficacy. All in all, teacher effective can be described as those characteristics that can help students to perform and those who strive to ensure the school goals are attained. Attainment of school goals, such as maximum output, highest students‟ retention, performance and completion is the dream of educational institution. Other have described teacher effectiveness based on how teachers conceive it in terms of primary education. In the description, Coleman, et al., (1966) pointed to specific measures of student, teacher and classroom characteristics. This description however, is based on education production functional perspective, where effectiveness is measured from the pass rate of the students. The issue of poor academic performance of students in Nigeria has been of much concern to all and sundry.
The problem is so much that it has led to the widely acclaimed fallen standard of education in Delta State and Nigeria at large. The quality of education depends on the teachers as reflected in the performance of their duties. Over time pupils’ academic performance in both internal and external examinations had been used to determine excellence in teachers and teaching (Ajao 2001). Teachers have been shown to have an important influence on students’ academic achievement and they also play a crucial role in educational attainment because the teacher is ultimately responsible for translating policy into action and principles based on practice during interaction with the students (Afe 2001). Both teaching and learning depends on teachers: no wonder an effective teacher has been conceptualized as one who produces desired results in the course of his duty as a teacher (Uchefuna 2001). Considering governments’ huge investment in public education, its output in terms of quality of students have been observed to be unequal with government expenditure. Consequent upon the observed deterioration in the academic achievement, attitude and values of secondary school students in public secondary schools one wonders if the high failure rates and the poor quality of the students is not a reflection of the instructional quality in the schools. In other words the ineffectiveness of teachers in classroom interaction with the students could be responsible for the observed poor performance of students and the widely acclaimed fallen standard of education in Nigeria.
While acknowledging the importance of effective teachers and training them to cater for the needs of all the children in schools, there still is little agreement on the fundamental characteristics of eective teachers in primary schools. The dierences in understanding have become an interesting area of research in the sub-Saharan Africa and similar countries. Studies have been conducted mainly in secondary teachers for the aims of training eective secondary school teachers (Mosha, 2000; Bedi & Sharma, 2006; Shahzad, 2007).
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Teachers should always be effective at all times, because any ineffective teacher will be useless to the teaching profession. Such inefficiency may not necessarily be caused by individual teacher characteristics such intellectual capacity, inadequate training, and resistance to modern pedagogical methods, or poor attitude about the teaching profession and a lack of dedication to professional duties (Hakielimu, 2008) but also from the students‟ characteristics such as family background, students‟ predisposition to learn. Further, teacher ineectiveness may be caused by classroom environment such as lack of necessary teaching and learning materials and the number of pupils in one classroom. The widely expressed view in Nigeria that all that is required to be an effective teacher is the general qualification earned from a university also needs to be investigated. Maybe that is the reason why unqualified teachers are still employed in Nigeria schools.
