An assessment of the national teachers' institute national certificate in education, on teachers' professional competence in a social studies class.

Abstract

This study assessed the professional competence of teachers who hold the National Teachers' Institute (NTI) Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) in a Social Studies classroom. The study adopted a casual comparative design. Forty NCE teachers produced by NTI Distance Learning Programme and 40 Full-time NCE trained teachers were purposively selected from schools in eight local government areas of Ogun State. Instructional Competence Rating Scale (r=0.68), and Teachers Knowledge of Social Studies Content (r=0.72) were used to collect data which were analysed using descriptive statistics. The result indicated that there was no significant difference between the categories of teachers on their full knowlege of subject matter. Finding also indicated that the NTI NCE and Full-time NCE trained teachers were not competent in term of classroom instructional practice as they did not give enough room for pupils' active involvement in the teaching-learning process. In view of the fact that teachers will continue to access professional training by NTI, there is the need for NTI to ensure a favourable training environment including the quality of the teaching practice organised for these category of teachers in order to enhance the production of teachers who possess high knowledge of subject content and who can engage in quality classroom instructional practices.