WHEN TEACHERS SPEAK: SENIORS SCHOOL TEACHERS PERCEPTION OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS IN ILORIN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Teacher professional development is a life-long process that should last until the teacher's tenure or retirement; consequently, teacher professional development should be viewed as a continuous process. If teachers do not keep up with global developments, particularly those brought about by technology, they will be out of place in this era. Three research questions were formed to guide the conduct of this study, purposive sampling techniques were used to select five participants, and themes that emerged were perception (life-long process, teachers’ needs and a way of getting new ideas), the second research question reveals the different types of professional development that the teachers attended while the last theme reveals the challenges the teacher encountered such as lack of funding, availability of the program, time constraint, transportation issue and incompetent personnel. The study concluded that the issue of professional development cannot be over-emphasized, and the following recommendation was made; teacher professional development should be made available to all teachers and not just some few privileged ones; there should be proper monitoring during the selection process so that those that are non-teachers are not selected; government should also ensure that teachers are motivated (financially) when they are going for continuing education.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0029/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>