CHALLENGES AND WAY FORWARD FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING OF CHEMISTRY IN A DEVELOPING NATION: CASE STUDY OF EBONYI STATE SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

Abstract

It has been a serious issue of great concern to education administrators, the manner students avoid the study of chemistry and more worrisome is the level of failures recorded in chemistry external and internal examinations. This issue motivated this study ‘Challenges and way forward for teaching and learning of chemistry in a developing nation: case study of Ebonyi state secondary schools (CWFC)’. The study has four research questions and two research hypotheses which were used to develop 39 items questionnaire as the instrument for the study. The instrument (CWFC) was subjected to both face validation and test re-test for its validity and reliability test and it passed with high grades. A total of 264 respondents made up of 240 chemistry students and 24 chemistry teachers of which 181 of them are male while 83 are female were used for the study. Results of the study showed that nature of chemistry as a subject, lack of qualified chemistry teachers, poor/wrong method of teaching, lack of teacher’s and student’s motivation, no job opportunity for chemistry graduates, poor or complete absence of chemistry laboratory in secondary schools, use of obsolete materials in teaching the subject, lack of modern chemistry textbooks and negative influence of friends, peer groups and parents/relatives are the major challenges to teaching and learning of Chemistry in secondary schools in Ebonyi state. The study showed no significant difference between the mean ratings of teachers and students and also they was no significant difference between the mean ratings of male and female on the challenges and way forward for teaching and learning of chemistry in senior secondary schools in Ebonyi State. The study recommends among other things: employment of adequate qualified chemistry teachers and technologists into the secondary school system, increase in funding of chemistry teaching and learning activities in the state by government and spirited individuals and groups, sponsoring of chemistry teachers and technologists in both local and foreign conferences, workshops and seminars, Proper and adequate supervision of teaching and learning of chemistry programmes in order to overcome the Challenges and way forward for teaching and learning of chemistry in the state.