WELCOME TO KENTERPRO:
IMPACT OF MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT ON TEACHERS’ PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN PANKSHIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF PLATEAU STATE

CHAPTER ON

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Education refers to the development of human skills and knowledge of the people or labour force. It is not only the quantitative expansion of educational opportunities but also the qualitative improvement of the type of education which is imparted to the labour force that holds the key to economic development because of its significant contribution to economic development, education has been called as human capital and expenditure on education of the people as investment in man or human capital (Ojo, 2019).

 An evaluation of the role of education in economic development must not be confined to judging its impact on growth in output but should also include its impact on structure and pattern of economic development as well as on the distribution of income and removal of poverty. Economic research has revealed the importance of education as a crucial factor in economic development. (Harbison, 2010).

There has been a growing interest in recent years over the performance of students in Nigerian schools and this has generated a lot of concern about standard of education in the heart of many people. This calls to mind also the growing concern for teachers’ accountability hence their accountability and transparency in education has become very imperative considering the fact that the society expects very much from the school system hence a teacher is key in implementation  of school curriculum.

There is an outcry of stakeholders in education that the school system is not living to standard as the academic performance of the students is poor in WAEC, NECO, NABTEB etc). The classroom teachers are accountable for the students’ progress and failure. Parents who sent their children to school are concern of the products – student’s performance from teacher input-process. Apart from being concerned about their wards in schools and how good or poor they appear, parents who constituted members of the society feel that education is funded by society through tax payers’ monies from them and as such should teachers’ performance manifest in the school children’s results. 

Educational standard stands for quality of education that is capable of producing sound products (students). Defining quality of education in the educational context should be regarded as objectives to be achieved or expectations of desirable attitude or levels of performance of teachers as manifested in the students’ aggregate performance.

Factor for falling standard of education as noted can be easily concluded that ineffective administration, non-flexible curriculum and outdated teaching methods used by teachers are the main reasons of declining educational standards at secondary level. We may say that to some extent the imperfect evaluation system and bad inspection involved in this deterioration. Improper health facilities, political interference, lacking of co-curricular activities, non-availability of scholarships are also some of the factors which destroy standards of education at secondary. (Lodhi and Faizi ,2010)

There are many unqualified teachers in the schools today especially in the secondary. Being unqualified may mean not having a required teacher training or in extreme cases teaching a subject for which one is not trained; but it is generally believed that a competent teacher could perform better than someone who is less so. In addition to the problem of lack of qualification is the extremely large class size, which is against the required standard. It is noteworthy that the National Policy on Education (NPE) recommends that an ideal classroom should contain 40 pupils and a teacher must be in charge at a time –although this deviates from the UNESCO’s recommendation of teacher-pupil ratio of 1:30, which is believed would make teaching and learning efficient and effective better than a larger class. (Nwokeoma, 2010)

Scholars have noted  that when the need for high level manpower became apparent today, the Teachers’ Grade II Certificate holders who used to hold sway in the teaching profession are no longer considered qualified upon the making of the Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) the minimum qualification for becoming a teacher in Nigeria. (Onwuka ,2001 in Zuhumben, Maikano and Gokum (2019 p.73)

Emanating from the desire for manpower development, the Elliot Commission was set up in 1943 and some of its recommendations were that ‘National Manpower Board should be established to study and make recommendations for the solution of manpower shortage’ and secondly that ‘training of teachers should be giving the highest priority’ because of findings of the commission revealed that there were high drop-out rates and leading to shortages of teachers. (The Elliot Commission, 1943).

Results of both internal and external examinations taken by secondary school students have drastically fallen short of standard and evidence have shown that low quality and inexperienced teachers accounted for this ugly development.

Government at various levels have made efforts for teachers’ upgrading in various manpower development plans. In recent times, National Teachers Institute NTI has initiated Special Teachers Upgrading Programme – STUP, targeted at training all teachers who have lower qualifications below NCE. There have been workshops and conferences organized by Teaching Service Boards –TSB of various states towards enhancing capacity of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria. In addition to the above, teachers have been benefiting from a long lasting and recurrent appreciable model of manpower development method; the in-service training scheme, whereby they are allowed to go for further studies for upgrade in their educational qualification and knowledge; this option of manpower development grants leave for the period under study with the beneficiary teachers receiving their full salaries to return to work place upon completion.

It is worrisome to note that, despite these measures, the secondary school system has a reasonable number of teachers who are lagging behind in terms of competencies to deliver on their professional mandate, some still need to benefit from the trainings available including workshops, conferences, mentoring and others that will bring positive impacts to bear on their career.

Manpower development has a lot of positive impact on teachers’ productivity hence it is an ongoing process that seeks to optimize school usage of its human resources. It requires an integrated approach that addresses multidimensional aspects of teachers, ranging from enhancing pedagogical, technical and interpersonal skills to creative thinking and leadership. It improves teachers’ efficiency on job task and places him above challenges of incompetence in his subject of study. 

It is against this backdrop that, the researcher is interested to examine the impact of manpower development on teachers’ productivity and how it can enhance increased knowledge of their disciplines to bear on their job tasks. The following manpower development methods: In-service training, conferences/workshops, mentoring and Task/job rotations will be examined with in-depth explanations of their distinctive functions in manpower development approach.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

There is a problem of low manpower in the secondary school system.

Secondary school system has witnessed an in-take of unqualified teachers of various categories. These includes teacher who do not have the educational certification and those who are certified teacher but do not have sound knowledge of their subject to be able to teach to make learners understand what they are teaching. This can result from lack of seriousness of the teacher during training or lack of constant updating of one’s knowledge in the absent of manpower development plans.

There are teachers who are teaching in secondary schools that are of low quality. Some of them have poor knowledge of their subject matters; adopt poor teaching methods, poor class room management as well as poor teacher-student relationship.

Lack of instructional supervision by school heads also account for why some teachers lack basic knowledge of rightful instructional delivery strategies.

These problems consequently translate into poor academic achievement of students in standardized examinations like WAEC, NECO, JAMB and Post UTME examinations as well as internal examination thus leading to production of school leavers who cannot compete favourably in the society, who cannot appear competent to perform responsibilities entrust on them.

The situation has created lack of trust of quality of teachers engage to constitute secondary school manpower hence evidence in the poor products produced by them emanating from gross ineffectiveness.

It is against the above challenges that this study seeks to explore in-service training, workshops, conference, group works, simulations, coaching, trainings, mentorship etc as possible ways of improving manpower efficiency for achievement of sets educational goals. 

1.3.    PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This study seeks to assess the impact of manpower development on teachers’ performance as a general objective. The specific objectives shall include the following:

1. To determine the impact of in-service training of teachers on their productivity
2. To examine mentor/mentee relationship of teachers and its impact on increasing productivity
3. To evaluate impact of conferences and workshops organized for teachers targeted at increasing their professional knowledge and skills.
4. To assess the impact of task/job rotation plan of school administration in enhancing job performance among teachers

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following research questions are formulated:

1. Why does government carry out manpower development of teachers through in-service training method?
2. To what extent do school administrators carry out mentorship of junior colleagues as a means of manpower development for teachers?
3. How do teachers benefit from choice of conferences/workshops as a teacher development method?
4. Does school management adopt and practice task/job rotation as a way of improving performance of inexperienced teachers?

1.5     RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The researcher formulates the following hypotheses:

1. There is no significance relationship between in-service training with teachers’ job performance
2. There is no significance relationship between mentoring and teachers’ job performance
3. There is no significance difference between conferences/workshops and teachers’ efficiency
4. There is no significance relationship of task/job rotation and teachers’ job performance

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will benefit the following:

Teachers will benefit the manpower development provided and targeted at them in various capacities. Those who would go for in-service training will have added knowledge and certificates. Those who would attend workshops, conferences will improve on areas of inadequacies in their fields. Similarly, those who can have mentor/mentee relationship will benefit from the proper guidance of the experienced and older colleagues, those who would experience group work will certainly share new knowledge and ideas from colleagues that can impact on their job. The over benefit of manpower development to a teacher will translate into better job performance hence increased productivity.

Parents who incurred costs for sending their children to school expect a good result. And specifically expect best of performance from them. It is the desire of the parent that their children having undergone six years studies in the secondary school should come out with a result that qualifies them to the next level of education. When teachers have undergo manpower development programs and have added much needed knowledge to bear on their job this benefit is multiplied and parents shared in it.

Students are the products of a school system, teaching and learning centered on them. Students are directly affected by ill-trained teacher. Students’ poor performance is traced to teachers and if a teacher have undergone manpower development and is capable of making huge impact positive impact in the class, the students benefit most hence they have opportunity to learn under capable hands.

Society incurred cost for the existence of a school. This can be referred to as a social cost. The land offered for school establishment is a cost to the community hosting a school, the congestions experienced on social amenities in the communities as a result of siting a school translates into a social cost for the society. And again, the school is made possible because of the tax monies collected from members of the society among other opportunity costs. Therefore, if the school produces sound students in the society, the society benefits from that. The society is happy to experienced sound manpower. Hence the society depends on the school system to produce well trained individuals that are valuable assets in their communities.

          School Principals are employees of Ministry of Education and they are representatives of government authorities in ensuring that instructional objectives of the school programme are achieved and a best way to achieve this is by having a competent and qualified teachers. Both the later and the former are achieved through in-service training, workshops, conferences, mentoring among others which we can refer to as manpower development options. As teachers’ performance are rated high, the school administrator feels accomplished in his task as a school head because he is accountable to parents, students, teachers themselves and the society which good output from his leadership.   

This work will benefit other students or other interested persons willing to conduct a research in the same or related topic. It is our believe that upon completion, this study will serves as a body of knowledge to be made referenced to and or made a review upon changes that may be noticed later in the change of time. 

The research work qualifies the researcher upon successful completion to obtaining a B.Ed certificate. Doing this work is a must task to be accomplish which serves as a six credit load and as one of the requirements for the award of the degree which the researcher is pursuing. Therefore, himself shares in the benefits of the research work.

1.7     DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This research Impact of Manpower Development on Teachers’ Productivity in Secondary Schools looks closely at In-service training, conferences, workshops, alongside mentoring, training, and coaching from experienced colleagues and rotation of classes and their effective manpower development.

The study covers secondary schools in Pankshin Local Government Area of Plateau State, Nigeria considering public schools in the metropolis. The study intends to use only public schools believing that findings from there could be sufficient for generalization.

1.8. OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Qualified teachers: These are skillful, competent, sound and knowledgeable  teachers in the secondary schools in public schools under investigation.

Unqualified teachers: These are teachers with low certificates in education, teachers with insufficient knowledge of their disciplines, teachers who lack appropriate pedagogical skills to teach in the secondary schools under consideration.

Manpower: This is used to describe the available teachers in those secondary schools under consideration.

Development: Using conferences, workshops, in-service training, coaching etc to increase teacher’s knowledge

Productivity: The output from the teacher after undergone training    

Manpower development Methods:  These include conferences, workshops, coaching, training, mentoring, in-service etc that a teacher undertake for improvement in his job.

Job efficiency:  The best that is actually expected from a teacher.

Poor performance: The indices representing student’s low scores in external examinations. Example WAEC, NECO, NABTEB, JAMB etc.