CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

          In Nigeria, there is a rush by college of education students and youths for other profession like medicine, law, accounting, and engineering and similarly to those already in these profession are striving hard to make them more attractive to prospective candidates and those in the profession. To some, there is that element of pride and self-identification among members of the profession. All these make them more attractive to college of education students, the youths and other members of the public. However, the teaching profession has been relegated to the background, thus least attractive to college of education students the youths and members of the public.

          It can be recalled that before the discovery of crude oil and consequently the rapid growth in the banking and other private sector of the economy, teaching attractive a large number of youths between the 1940’s and late 1970’s secondary schools and universities undergraduates usually make teaching their first job once they are out of school, but as at today, the reverse is the case. The attitude of college of education students towards the teaching profession today can be regarded as poor and several reasons have been adduct for this. Among these reasons are the poor remuneration teachers receive coupled with the late payment of their entitlement and the poor working environment they have to face each day in carrying out their responsibilities as compared to the counterparts in law, medicine, engineering, accounting and the banking professions.

          The attitude of education students and youths towards the teaching profession is not peculiar to only those in colleges of education but also to those in the universities, thus, there is the universal poor perception of colleges of education students towards the teaching profession because if their poor working conditions and lack of the necessary hectic as in other profession. It was along the line of reasoning that Llo (1991) met and participant reiterated that teacher’s poor working conditions and participant were more concerned with the poor income of teachers. They also display the late payment of teacher’s salaries in member’s nations.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS

          Out of all profession teaching is the only one that is being snubbed by college of education students and youths. It is the least attractive to them in terms of remuneration, late payment of salaries and arrears, this tend to reduce the number of those entering it as a full profession for example, the teaching profession records the lowest number of applicants in universities environment. Teaching profession has recorded the lowest number of students willing to take teaching as their full profession even those in colleges of education who are supposed to be professional teachers are in these colleges so that they can be called a graduate or an educated person who has gone through higher institution and not actually for their love for the teaching profession.

          Education all over the world is seen as the door to any nations development and the teachers holds the key to this door this shows that teachers play a paramount role in nations education system. Ukeje (1969) in his book titled “the role of teachers” when he quoted professor Karlor Bieglord as follows: the teachers constitute the most vital factor in any educational system upon their devotion, their quality their effectiveness of all; educational arraignment must depend on. Professor Ukeje also stressed the importance of teachers contending that teachers are important in the process of nations building. The research focuses therefore on how to improve teachers working conditions and seeking ways to arrest their exodus making it attractive to colleges of education students and the youths.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY    

          The purpose of this research is to identify and examine the socio-economic factors that makes teaching less attractive to colleges of education students and the youths. However, the study will also find out reasons why the teaching profession is not attractive to colleges of educations students, the youths and recommend ways of reversing the trend.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS 

          For thorough evaluation, the following research questions were formulated for the study

1.            That the socio-economic factors makes teaching career less attractive to colleges of education students.

2.            That the colleges of education students could be boosted by motivating them towards teaching as a profession

3.            That students of colleges of education Ekiadolor will find teaching career attractive if the socio-economic factor is corrected.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study is out to examine the effects of colleges of education students towards making teaching their career. The study is significant because it will not only identify reasons why the profession is not attractive to colleges of education students but it will offer remuneration which will be of immense value to youth, parents, colleges of education students teachers, curriculum planners and government on ways and manners to make teaching the noble profession. The research will further prove to the outside world that their predicaments are in the course of carrying out their duties.

This research is aloe significant because some of the measures that will; be recommended will help to have college of education students into the profession. What is more, their attitude of seeing teaching, as a second-class job will be a thing of the past, the way for new entrants into the profession will be encouraged. The research is also significant because it will be an addition to previous work done on this topic and a pedestal for further studies.  

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

          The researcher hopes to look into the various problems encountered by students of colleges of education Ekiadolor in choosing teaching as their course of study. The researcher also intends to look into how socio-economic factor could result to low attractiveness of teaching as a career to college of education students particularly in Ekiadolor.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

          This section will be devoted to the definition of the key concepts used in this study. They include the following:

Social-Status: This means the social, legal or profession position of a student at any point in time.

Motivation: This means to stimulate the interest of students or to cause a student to want to do something.

Morale: morale means the amount of confidence; enthusiasm determination that a person or group has at a particular time it may be high or low.

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