CHALLENGES OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF SOCIAL STUDIES IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA(A CASE STUDY OF NDOKWA WEST LGA DELTA STATE )

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Social studies classes are known to be boring and meaningless by many students, especially the junior secondary school students. It’s increasing state standards have gradually destroyed many teachers’ faith that creative practices can be used due to the pressure to “get through” the material. The central objective of social studies is to assist young people and the society make well-informed, reasoned and intelligent decisions for the public well-being as good citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world. Grooming responsible and reserved citizens is paramount in any governmental system; it is essential to a democracy. Now the real challenges lie with the amount of material to be taught and the tedious task it is to convince the secondary school students, especially the junior ones, and policy makers, that the social studies as a subject is vital in their world.

Nigeria is a society comprising people of different social classes, religions, races and ethnic groups. There are comparatively two hundred and fifty different languages and over four hundred dialects. It is the desire of Nigerians to be one unified nation, with a single goal and with a people who share common goals. Since Nigeria achieved independence in 1960, successive governments have sought to inflict this single identity through education, and specifically social studies.

The efforts of educationalists that desired and tried to introduce the teaching of Social Studies into schools in Nigeria in the early days served as a catalyst for the introduction of Social Studies into the school curriculum immediately after independence. Its penetration into the school curriculum at this time was could not last long because there were no schools in which the subject could be taught but it was re-introduced in 1963 to assist learners to learn about themselves, societal problems and about the wider communities in which they live. Social Studies, with its unified approach to learning, was seen as being equal to cutting across artificial subject divisions and presenting knowledge as an integrated whole. In this range of vision, the fact that Social Studies in the Nigerian deals with an interplay of various factors – political, economic, cultural, physical, technological - the learner develops different view of reality that helps him or her to make well thought-out reasoned and rational suggestions equipped towards societal development. Nigeria as a nation came into existence from different socio-cultural entities. As a result of our differences, it has not been an easy task to build a sense of common unity, national pride and single purpose because the spirit of unity, oneness at national level is very weak when compared with the moral sense of belonging. Therefore, to bring this goal of building a united, viable and prosperous Nigeria into existence, the school curriculum became the base on which national unity was to be established and fostered.

Social Studies a unique and important subject in Nigeria's educational system. It is a mandatory subject for all Nigerian students in primary school and junior secondary school and an elective subject at the senior secondary school level. Since the present time when the subject was re-introduced into the school curriculum till now, its impact has been limited. For example, ethnic loyalty rather than national loyalty continues to improve; the spirit of unity at national level is very weak when compared with the ethnic sense of belonging. Accordingly, after independence, the level of social development in the southern part of the country was to a large extent higher than in the northern part. The effect of this is constant social clash between the people in the North and those in the South. In the process, national boundaries inflicted by colonial masters have resulted in political tensions with separate nations being forced to work together within administrative units. People who had never for once been politically or socially bound to each other, with different histories, cultures, languages, beliefs and social structures have no other choice but find a way of living and working together.

As mentioned above, Nigeria still remains a society that comprises of different social classes of people, religions, races with each ethnic group challenging succeeding governments’ ‘one-nation’ aspirations despite the introduction of Social Studies into the school curriculum. Over the years, a series of plan have been developed by different administrations to foster the dreamed goal of national unity. All these plans to foster nation’s unity did not achieve the desired goals completely. This fuelled the desire to research on the reason Social Studies has not been effective as it should have been, what teachers’ think about its effectiveness.

Social Studies was introduced in the Nigerian School Curriculum as part of the instrument for achieving national development (National Policy on Education (NPE) 1981). This was what informed its designation as part of the core curriculum at different levels of education in Nigeria.

Social Studies curriculum development agencies such as the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) and experts further identified and disseminated the curriculum goals or purposes of the subject in the school curriculum. These include citizenship education, reflective inquiry and social science education, (Barth-shermis, 1920; Barth-Norris, 1976; Dubey and Barth, 1980; Olawepo, 1984) among others. These broadly stated goals must be clare to, and recognized as important as well as attainable by teachers and other participants connected with the Curriculum if the intentions or purposes must be realized and the investment of effort is to be considered worthwhile (Feather, 1982; Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988). These intentions or purposes are prima facie stated with clarity, but their perception or conceptualization by teachers and scholars is still in doubt as Onyabe (1980) observed that the philosophy, content and methodology of social studies has remained vague to both scholars and teachers. The incidence of conflicting conceptions of social studies curriculum is a cause for concern for three major reasons. First, the anchor or strategic position of purposes or intentions in the curriculum development process (Pratt, 1994) as illustrated in Tyler (1949) (Linear) and Wheeler (1980) (cyclic) curriculum models, among others.

Secondly, curriculum goals or purposes, are indispensable elements in instructions as far as effective implementation of an already developed curriculum is concerned. Thirdly, the correct conception, investment of efforts and ultimate realization of the purposes of the curriculum will facilitate the realization of the overall aims of the Nigerian educational enterprise.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Presently, junior secondary school students’ interest and academic achievement in social studies is declining. Lemchi (2001) noted that some students are losing interest in the subject.

Attitudes associated with Social Studies appear to affect students’ performance in the subject. Also, many Social Studies teachers teach Social Studies without instructional materials and facilities (Mberengwa 2004). The quality of teachers, and class room facilities are grossly inadequate and obsolete. Owolabi et al. (1991) also indicated that a serious disconnection exists between Social Studiestraining in secondary schools and the needs of the labour market, as students that do not proceed to higher education have been found to be incompetent in the field of work. Where students consistently perform poorly, the implication is that adequate teaching and learning has not taken place in schools. Therefore, the problem of this study is to examine the problems of teaching and learning of Social Studiesin secondary schools in Delta State.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main purpose of this study is to examine the problems of teaching and learning of Social Studies in Junior Secondary Schools in Delta State, Nigeria. Specifically, this study sought to:

1. Find out the extent to which students’ attitudes constitute problems to the teaching and learning of Social Studies.
2. Assess the extent to which teacher quality and quantity constitute problems to the teaching and learning of Social Studies.
3. Find out the extent to which instructional materials constitute problems to the teaching and learning of Social Studies.
4. Determine the extent to which curriculum issues pose problems to the teaching/learning of Social Studies.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following research questions were formulated to guide the study:

1. To what extent do attitudes of Delta State Junior Secondary Schools Students constitute problems to the teaching of Social Studies?
2. To what extent to teacher quality and quantity cause problems to the teaching of Social Studies?
3. To what extent do instructional materials pose problems to the teaching and learning of Social Studies?
4. To what extent do curriculum issues pose problems to the teaching and learning of Social Studies?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

H0: There are no challenges of effective teaching of social studies in delta state

H1: There are challenges of effective teaching of social studies in delta state

1.6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study gives various insights into the challenges of teaching social studies in junior secondary schools in Nigeria. These highlighted challenges will enable stakeholders in the education sector to take adequate measures in tackling these challenges, and make learning of social studies a lot easier for both teachers and students in junior secondary school levels.

1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study covers the challenges and prospects of teaching social studies at junior secondary schools in Nigeria using Delta state as a case study. Findings and recommendations for the study may not reflect the true view of the challenges of teaching social studies in Nigeria, as the researcher could not cover a wider area in Nigeria due to time and financial constraints.

1.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

There are some limiting factors which influence the researcher’s effort towards developing this work (project). The most prevailing being time factor as other school extra curricula activities that had to be met with

1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Social studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence. Social studies is most commonly recognized as the name of a course or set of courses taught in primary and secondary schools or elementary, middle, and secondary schools, but may also refer to the study of aspects of human society at certain post-secondary and tertiary schools around the globe. Many such courses are interdisciplinary and draw upon various fields, including sociology but also political science, history, economics, religious studies, geography, psychology, anthropology, and civics.

A challenge is a general term referring to things that are imbued with a sense of difficulty and victory.

Teacher:  a person or thing that teaches something; especially: a person whose job is to teach students about certain subjects

School: A school is an institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students (or "pupils") under the direction of teachers.

Learning: Learning is the act of acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing existing, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, plants and some machines.

Policy: A definite course or method of action selected (by government, institution, group or individual) from among alternatives and in the light of given conditions to guide and, usually, to determine present and future decisions.

Curriculum:  The term curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a specific course or program.