Perception of adult education instructors on challenges of adult education in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja: Counselling implications

Abstract

The achievement of success of adult education in Nigeria has been a mirage as a result of inadequate trained staff as well as teaching and learning facilities in the centres where lessons take place. This paper is aimed at investigating the perceptions of adult education instructors on the challenges of adult education in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. Eighty instructors were used for the study selected from Kuje and Abaji Local Councils out of the population of adult educators in the six local councils in the FCT. The instrument used for the study was titled “Perception of Adult Instructors on Challenges of Adult Education” (PAICAE). The content validity of the instrument was conducted by three experts and reliability of 0.86 was obtained. Means and mean rank order as well as t-test analysis were used for decision making for the results. There were no significant differences between the two hypotheses. All the means of the items on challenges of adult education were above 2.50 which was the cut-off point. Therefore, responses on the challenges of adult education as perceived by instructors used for the study were all accepted. Some of the items that constituted challenges were thus: inadequate trained staff, insufficient teaching and learning materials, important records were not up to date, irregular attendance by learners and instructors particularly during rainy seasons, among others. Counselling strategies such as cognitive behaviour therapy was advanced to be adopted to address the discovered challenges so that the government, the instructors as well as the learners should develop positive mindset and attention in terms of adequate funding, change of attitude and total transformation of this sector so as to achieve the aims and objectives for which the landable educational programme is meant for.