Consumer evaluation of a part-time teacher education programme in a Nigerian College of Education

Abstract

A prominent feature of the Nigerian educational scene today is the proliferation of parttime programmes in both professional and non-professional courses by tertiary institutions. In the area of teacher education, part-time/sandwich programmes have become a topical issue which has generated a lot of debate among both professional educators and the general public. There is the general notion that the proliferation of sandwich and part-time programmes for serving teachers run by various colleges of education and universities in the country is likely to lead to a fall in the standard of teacher education. However, the debate on the apparent crisis in the quality of teacher education in the country remains to a large extent a speculative issue without any empirical support. Part-time and sandwich programmes are indeed a welcome development in the country's educational culture since it is only through a vigorous and determined effort by the training institutions that the problem of poor quality of teaching personnel can be realistically addressed. Obviously these programmes afford wonderful opportunities to serving teachers who cannot abandon their jobs to participate in full-time studies necessary for the improvement of their professional knowledge and skills. As a deliberate policy to improve the quality of teaching personnel serving in the public school system, the Federal Government of Nigeria has made the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) a minimum teaching qualification in primary schools by the year 2000. The sandwich and part-time programmes offered by colleges of education and universities include certificate courses like the Associate Certificate in Education (ACE), the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE), post-graduate courses B.Ed. and higher degree programmes. However a cursory examination of these programmes easily reveals the diversity they exhibit in terms of entry qualifications, duration, organisation and content. It is possible that the lack of a common framework for the organisation of teacher training programmes has contributed to the barrage of criticisms to which these programmes have recently been subjected. We also observe that the uncritical consumers of these programmes are often satisfied with anything that goes on in the programmes provided their efforts will be blessed with a at the end of the programme. The education industry seems to be perverted by certificate consciousness or, by what Ronald Dore (1976) has aptly described as diploma disease. One way of addressing the problem of poor quality of teacher education programmes is for teacher training institutions to undertake regular and systematic evaluation of their training programmes to determine to what extent they are achieving their objectives. It is through such well planned formative evaluations that programme quality can be effectively monitored and problems of implementation identified and tackled. It is against this background that this consumer evaluation of the Part-Time teacher education programme of the Rivers State College of Education was carried out.