By Idakwoji, S; Makolo, CU (2022). Greener Journal of Educational Research, 12(1): 48-56.

Greener Journal of Educational Research Vol. 12(1), pp. 48-56, 2022 ISSN: 2276-7789 Copyright ©2022, the copyright of this article is retained by the author(s) https://gjournals.org/GJER

Impact of Staff Development Programmes on Performance of academic Staff in Colleges of Education in North-Central geographical Zone, Nigeria.

Idakwoji, Solomon; Makolo, Charity Unekwu-Ojo

Department of Educational Foundations, Federal College of Education, Pankshin, Plateau State, Nigeria.

Department of Home Economics, Federal College of Education, Pankshin, Plateau State, Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION

Maintaining a happy and joyous workforce is crucial to the progress of any organization. More so, the productivity of any organization is largely determined by the quality of its personnel and how the organization is able to develop them. . Any knowledge after five years may become obsolete if nothing new is added to it; this is due to the rate of the global technological advancement, research and new discoveries.

The idea underlying human resource development in any sector, including the education sector is how best to keep employees current, vibrant and versatile so that they can continuously perform their roles effectively in the rapid socio-economic, political, scientific and technological changes and globalization. Peretomode and Chukwuma (2014) opined that in education, teachers are the foundation of quality; they hold thrust for implemented curriculum of formal education and therefore, are at the centre of the education process. No education system can rise above the quality of its teachers (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004). Building a solid academic staff development programme influences the realization of the college mission statement. Employee development refers to the human resource development programmes designed to enhance the value of employees after they have joined the organization. This includes employee training, orientation promotion, mentoring, seminars and workshop among others. Thus it is the series of activities embarked upon by an organization that leads to knowledge or skills acquisition for growing purposes.

Colleges of Education in Nigeria are institutions that train the trainers’ as they are responsible for the production of teachers for the Basic Education and Secondary School levels. The colleges as stated in the Colleges of Education Act (Decree of (1986) are to perform the followings:

1. provide full time courses in the teaching, instruction and training in (i) technology, applied science, humanities and management. (ii) Such other fields of applied learning relevant to the development of Nigeria;
2. conduct courses in education for qualified teachers;
3. arrange conferences, seminars and workshop relative to the field of learning specified in paragraph a of this section; and
4. its performance function as in the opinion of the council may sense to promote the objectives of the college (FRN 1986).

The Nigeria Certificate in Education is the basic qualification for teaching in Nigeria; it is a sub-degree (certificate course) and a professional teacher diploma which is obtained after three years full-time at the college of education. LASSA (2000), observed that there has been greater awareness that teachers who were trained some few years ago are not adequately equipped for effective teaching except complemented by in-service training.

The need for lecturers in colleges of education to improve their knowledge, skills, attitude and behaviours while on the Job is more critical now in the developing nation like Nigeria than ever before for a number of reasons. For example, academic programmes in colleges rarely adequately prepare students as finished products for their future position as teachers and their accompanying responsibilities (Pretomode (2001), Pertomde and Chukwuma (2014). Moreover, the issue of quality assurance to ensure credibility of certification is essential in teacher production.

Furthermore, the higher the quality of teachers produced by the colleges of education, the faster the rate of growth and development and achievement of the basic education goals as well as Millennium Development Goals (MDGS). Schools planning to deliver virtual instruction should invest considerable resources in identifying, training, and supporting teachers, (National School Boards Association, 2002, p. 13). It is understandable that to undertake a new medium for delivering instruction, teachers need to be provided the necessary training to utilize the new opportunities to ensure student success. Staff development is the key to increasing student achievement through the improvement of teachers’ skills and abilities. A successful staff development programme is cyclic in nature. This ongoing process must be collaborative in nature involving teachers, administrators and stakeholders. Schools and school administrators must align their student learning goals and curriculum with state requirements and then analyze the student achievement data to determine deficiencies in student learning. Once the problem areas are identified, research should be used to determine which effective and efficient instructional strategies would produce the desired results.

Needs assessment will determine which teachers possess these skills and which do not. It is expected that staff development would be varied to meet the individual skills and readiness levels of the teachers. Using the data, a comprehensive and cohesive staff development plan can be developed, implemented, and evaluated. Schools can never be satisfied with the level of students’ achievement and to improve, they must constantly cycle through the process of evaluating goals and data, reviewing research, and modifying staff development to address needs to increase student achievement.

Staff development is a process of enhancing the capacity of teachers to be effective and efficient in their ability to accomplish the predetermined objectives of the school system. It is directed towards the improvement of teachers and the focus should be areas where skills are inadequate. It is also for the purpose of upgrading and bridging the gaps with much interest to provide the need for creativity and flexibility in academic activities. In other words, ability is stimulated thereby creating an environment in which it becomes easier to explore, becoming more proactive and commands changes in the organization. Hence varieties of development programmes are initiated in the school system to ascertain the objectives of the National Policy on Education. In Nigerian Colleges of Education (COE), staff development programmes refer to opportunities provided for staff to increase their knowledge, skills, experiences and understanding thereby improving their job performances. These opportunities, according to the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) (2008) include educational programmes such as Bachelor in Education (B. Ed), Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE), Master of Education (M. Ed), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D), and Higher National Diploma (HND). Others include short training courses such as conferences, seminars and workshops; writing of articles in educational journals; sabbatical leave and induction training programmes for newly employed staff.

In addition to these programmes, staff in Nigerian Colleges of Education are also exposed to various activities such as staff meetings at various levels, serving in different college committees, coaching by more experienced staff and working on delegated authorities. These activities are deliberately planned to develop staff professionally and to encourage them to achieve job satisfaction (Mathis and Jackson, 2006). For instance, in-service training programme represents a veritable medium which aims at correcting certain deficiencies in order to accelerate technological advancement through the educational system. More so workshops, conferences and seminars serve as an effective measure of dissemination of information concerning academic practice. It is a form of networking, exchange of ideas and, reflects on other’s opinions which strengthen inter-institutional collaboration, increase publication records and development of career path endowment. In academic fields, it is said that the total of human knowledge is doubling every five or ten years (John, 1998). It is thus almost impossible for an individual staff member to remain in touch with the subject without a conscious investment in scholarship and self-tuition. When these knowledge advances are allied to similar changes in pedagogy, learning materials development and the use of technology, the scale of self-improvement required becomes massive. (John, 1998). This situation calls for training and development in colleges of education.

Lecturers do not perform to the expected standards and neither do they seem to address the needs of students and other stakeholders. Their performance is still less satisfactory than the expected standards and consequences have been predictable as there are rising concerns over poor coverage of students’ projects and course content, delayed examination results and missing marks, poor administration of examinations, poor lecturer-student interaction, deteriorating academic performance and reduced levels of research and publications quality and as a result, academic standards and performance among students are not encouraging. More so the public and employers are not comfortable with the quality of NCE graduate teachers in both basic education and secondary schools. This situation requires investigation to know whether lecturers are given needed training and development to meet up their challenges.

In recent years, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) has expended a lot of money on staff development in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. In 2014 alone, according to the secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND spent 19 billion naira on staff development (People’s Daily, 2014). Still there are complaints from the public about the quality of NCE graduates in Nigeria. The public, students and other stakeholders are complaining that colleges of education lecturers are not performing to the expected standards and neither do they seem to address the needs of students and other stakeholders… For example, academic programmes in colleges rarely adequately prepare students as finished products for their future position as teachers and their accompanying responsibilities (Pretomode (2001), Pertomde and Chukwuma (2014). Moreover, the issue of quality assurance to ensure credibility of certification is essential in teacher production.

The use of modern teaching techniques to handle large class size and the information and technology systems in teaching seem to be a challenge to some lecturers in this modern age. This motivates the researcher to investigate into the staff development programmes in Colleges of Education in the North – Central Geographical Zone of Nigeria.

Teachers’ efficacy and performance are often at the centre of attention in educational institution, the challenges experienced in most colleges of education include large students’ enrolments and globalization of education with inherent competition for staff and students. Thus, each academic staff member is required to prove his/her credibility based on strength and magnitude of his/her research activities, teaching, and consultancy services among others’ capabilities. Mentoring in colleges of education is basically not practicable due to workload; senior lecturers hardly have time to mentor the younger ones.

In local conferences, many lecturers used to send their work through other colleagues and this is not supposing to be so as the main reason for conferences are to enable participants discover new knowledge and innovations in Education and to relate with other professional in the field, even when lecturers attend themselves, they hardly wait till the end of the conference. Furthermore, some lecturers see attending conference abroad as an opportunity to travel outside not minding the relevance of the conference to their primary assignment. The importance of academic staff professional development cannot be over emphasized. In spite of its apparent advantages, there are still many employers particularly in state colleges of education management who do not commit sufficient funds to the development of their staff. Understandably most staff of colleges of education appears to have positive belief about the usefulness of training and development and would want to engage in them personally (Paretomode and Chukwuma 2014).

Another challenge is the issue of condition for accessing training funds. Most lecturers and institutions could not meet up with the guideline for accessing the funds from TETFUND in terms of research proposals and books thereby leaving billions of naira unused. This situation was a major concern for the executive secretary, Prof Bogoro, when he lamented that one of the major challenges confronting the agency was the inability of some tertiary institutions across the country to access more than N67 billion of the funds (Muhammad, 2014).

Research Questions

The following research questions were asked to guide the study:

1. What is the impact of in-service training programme on the job performance of academic staff of colleges of education in the North-Central Geographical Zone?
2. In what way does mentoring impact on the job performance of academic staff of Colleges of Education in the North-Central Geographical Zone?
3. How does orientation programme impact on the job performance of academic staff of colleges of education in the North-Central Geographical Zone?
4. In what way does academic staff participation in conferences impact on their job performance in the North-Central Geographical Zone?

METHODOLOGY

The research design for this study was a descriptive survey design, particularly the cross-sectional survey design. The population of the study comprises all management staff, 3642 academic staff and union officials of the fifteen (15) Colleges of Education in North-Central Geographical Zone of Nigeria. North-central has ten (10) State Colleges of education, four (4) Federal Colleges of Education and FCT College of Education Zuba. The management staff in this research includes the, Principal officials (Provost, Deputy provost, College Liberian, Deans Head of Departments) who are the head of academics in the institution. The sample for the study consisting of 121 management staff, 444 academic staff and 21 union officials from the sampled Colleges of Education, were used. Eight (8) Colleges were sampled i.e four Federal Colleges and four State Colleges in the North-Central Geographical Zone. The sample was selected through simple random sampling technique. The main instrument used for this study was a structured questionnaire developed by the researcher for the study. The questionnaire was adopted because of its relevance to the issues raised in the research. The mean statistics and standard deviation were used to analyse research questions one to eight. The decision rule for the mean of each response was 3.00 and above for acceptance.

RESULTS

Table 1: Responses on the Impact of Higher Education Training on the Job Performance of Academic Staff of Colleges of Education in North- Central Geographical Zone of Nigeria

The Finding Implied That Higher Education Training Had A Positive Impact On The Job Performance Of Academic Staff Of Colleges Of Education In North-Central Geographical Zone Of Nigeria. The Opinions Of The Respondents Affirmed That Through Higher Education Training Academic Staff Learnt How To Plan Their Lessons Well, This View Was Also Accepted By Most Respondents As Significant Majority Of The Respondents Also Believed That Through Higher Education Training Programmes, Academic Staff Learns How To Control Their Classes And This Improves Their Performance In The Class, It Is Through Higher Education Training Academic Staff Master Their Subject Through Higher Education Training That Academic Staff Learns How To Evaluate Lessons, Through Higher Education Training Academic Staff Learns Questioning Techniques Which Helped To Improve Their Performance

Table 2 Responses of Respondents on the Impact of mentoring on the Job Performance of Academic Staff of Colleges of Education

The opinions of respondents regarding the impact of mentoring on the job performance of academic staff was also significant revealing that mentoring had a positive impact on the job performance of academic staff. The ultimate result of this was that through mentoring academic staff learns how to plan their lesson well and this enable them to perform better in the class. This issue was supported by the respondents who also accepted that through mentoring, academic staff master their subjects and this help improve their performance in the class, the respondents supported this fact. There was also a majority acceptance that through mentoring academic staff learnt how to carry out summative evaluation, through mentoring, academic staff knowledge increases.

Table 3 Responses of Respondents on the Impact of Orientation Programme on the Job Performance of Academic Staff of Colleges of Education in North- Central Geographical Zone of Nigeria

The aggregated responses of the respondents on the impact of orientation on the job performance of academic staff revealed that orientation had a positive impact on the performance of academic staff, the respondents affirmed that through orientation academic staff knowledge increases and this helps in better performance, this view was supported by the mean score of 4.34. The results also reveal that through orientation, academic staff learnt how to perform better in the class a mean score of 4.42 of the responses agreed with the statement. The respondents also accepted that through orientation, Academic Staff master their subjects, also, the findings reveal that through orientation, academic staff learns how to control their classes and this enhanced their performance, this statement was supported by the mean score of 4.02 which signify massive acceptance.

Table 4: Responses of Respondents on the Impact of Conferences on the Job Performance of Academic Staff of Colleges of Education in North- Central Geographical Zone of Nigeria.

The responses of the respondents on the Impact of conferences on the job performance of academic staff of Colleges of Education in North-central geographical zone of Nigeria revealed that participation in conference had a positive impact on the job performance of academic staff. The responses revealed that through conferences academic staff learnt how to plan their lesson well and this enables them to perform better in the class, this idea was supported by a mean score of 4.05 also the respondents believed that through conferences, academic staff master their subjects with a mean score of 4.00 and standard deviation of 0.901, the results also revealed that through conferences, academic staff learnt how to control their classes and this enhanced their performances in the class with the mean score of 3.90 and standard deviation of 0.931. The findings also revealed that through conferences, academic staff learnt how to introduce and present lessons and these helped in improving their performance, they also agreed that through conferences, academic staff learnt questioning technique, which helped to improve their performances in the class.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions were drawn:

1. In-service training had a positive impact on the job performance on academic staff of Colleges of Education in North-central geographical zone, Nigeria, that through in-service training academic staff learn many teaching skills;
2. With regard to the impact of mentoring on the job performance of academic staff of Colleges of Education results shows that mentoring enhanced the job performance of academic staff.
3. Findings showed that orientation programmes had capacity to improve academic staff job performance that through orientation academic staff learns how to control their classes, overcome anxiety and other skills that improve their job performance;
4. Also participation of academic staff in conferences had improved their job performance in many areas of their duties because it broaden their knowledge of their teaching subjects, boost their morale, how to carryout formative evaluation and other teaching skills like controlling their classes, communicate effectively in and outside the classroom;

RECOMMENDATIONS

The following recommendations were made on the basis of the findings and conclusions of this study:

1. In order to adequately meet the aims of staff development, employers and their managers need to provide within the framework of agreed policies, a wide range of developmental opportunities for all categories of staff. Such opportunities should include well-organised in-service education and training in a climate in which staff feel that they are being adequately supported in professional and resource terms;
2. To increase the chances of success, mentoring programme should be clearly linked to the existing staff development policies and practices so as to increase its chances of being supported by the participants core components of the programme (objectives guidelines, training, education, monitoring and evaluation), should be designed for effectiveness rather than expediency and voluntary participation and flexible guidelines should be encouraged. If colleges of education encourage mentoring programmes, it may significantly promote their effectiveness;
3. Orientation for newly employed staff should be planned in such a way that they must undergo at resumption, this should be well structured, monitored and evaluated since it can improve staff performance on their job;
4. Academic staff should be encouraged to attend conferences regularly and should be encouraged to participate in it not only for promotion sake but to help their performance in the class;

REFERENCES

Federal Republic of Nigeria, (2004). National Policy on Education. Lagos, govt press

John,F. (1998). Higher Education Staff Development: A continuing mission. Paris:

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Mathis, R. L. & Jackson, J. H. (2006). Human resource management (11th ed.) USA: Thomson South – Western

Muhammad,T.(2014,September,16) TETFund projects dot public varsities ,others. News Agency of Nigeria.

Peretomode, V. F., &Chukwuma, R. A. (2013). Manpower development and lecturer productivity in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. European Scientific Journal. 8(13), 16-28.

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