TEACHER EDUCATION POLICY, ETHICS, AND QUALITY OF GRADUATES: TRIAD ENTITIES FOR REMODELING GENERAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Abstract

The rating of an education system largely depends on the policy, ethical practices, and quality of the graduates. Thus, this research explores lecturers’ perception of the teacher education policy, ethics, and quality of its graduates. The research also theorized that policy, ethics, and quality are triad entities of an ideal educational institution. Hence, the relations between policy, ethics, and quality of graduate teachers were ascertained. The mixed-method design (qualitative and quantitative approaches) was employed. Participants were 606 lecturers of colleges of education and universities in Nigeria. For data collection, questionnaire and focus group discussions were employed. The questionnaire was validated by three experts, while its reliability (α = .889) was determined using Cronbach’s alpha method. Quantitative data were analysed with mean, standard deviation, and bivariate correlation. To analyse the qualitative data, thematic analysis was employed. Results revealed that teacher education policy and ethical practices in Nigeria were unsatisfactory, as perceived by the lecturers. More so, the quality of graduate teachers from Nigerian tertiary institutions declines. Hence, the need for attention on policy, ethics, and quality in teacher education programmes. Keywords: teacher education, education policy, ethics in education, quality of graduates, vocational education