Assessment of Production Skill Acquisition and Strategy for Capacity Enhancement in Pre-Service Science Teachers in Colleges: Implication for Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Realization

Abstract

The study was a survey research which investigated the production skills possessed by pre-service NCE teachers, strategies for capacity enhancement and the possible confronting problems. Two hundred pre-service NCE teachers were drawn from the seven colleges of education in the five states in the zone. A structured questionnaire was used for the study. The questionnaires were content validated by experts in the field and reliability sought, using Cronbach alpha technique which was established 0.87. Four research questions and one hypothesis which guided the study were analysed using means standard deviation and t-test at 0.05 significant level respectively. The results of the study reveal that the pre-NCE teachers were found to possessed skills for item 3 and 4 only. Also pre-service teachers agreed that apart from items 8, 10 and 11 all others are powerful strategies for building capacity in them during their training in the colleges. All the items on tables 3 were agreed to be problems to this capacity building except for items 8, 9 and 10. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that all the suggested strategies should be explored by teachers‟ trainers for the capacity enhancement of pre-service teachers. The federal government and college management should try to alleviate some of these possible confronting problems.

Keywords: National certificate in Education (NCE), National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS), Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)