PRE-SERVICE TEACHER QUALITY AND ATTAINMENT OF TEACHER EDUCATION GOALS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the Pre-service teacher quality and attainment of teacher education goals in Nigeria with particular focus on Osun state colleges of education. Descriptive survey research design was used for sample of 62 student teachers randomly selected from Osun state colleges of education. The face and content validity was determined. Four hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed the following results: There is significant relationship between pre-service teacher production quality and attainment of teacher education goals in Osun State Colleges of Education. There is no significant relationship between challenges of teacher education and quality of pre-service student but challenges of teacher education has significant influence on the attainment of teacher education goals. Moreso, there is no significant gender difference on pre-service teacher production quality in Osun State Colleges of Education. In the light of the study`s results, the researchers presented a number of recommendations and proposals the most important of which are: The curriculum content for teacher education has to be readjusted so that it fits into the allocated time more practically than theoretically. Conducting in-service training for teacher educators: The changes in the approach content/teacher-centred approach to competency/learner-centred approach needs in-service training for the teacher educators to be able to manage classes in the new approach. Since the approach is new, it is inevitable that new and old teacher educators get trained on the new skills. The training will facilitate teacher educators into skills on how to manage large classes under the new approach. If this is done on a regular basis, teacher educators will be capable of facilitating the learning tasks more easily and with confidence.