PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF TEACHING SOCIAL STUDIES IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL IN IKPOBA-OKHA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EDO STATE

ABSTRACT

This study focused on the problems and prospects of teaching Social Studies in secondary schools in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State. The objective of this study was to determine problems and prospects of teaching Social Studies in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State, four research questions was formulated to guide the study.

The Survey research design was adopted in the study. The population of the study consists of all Social Studies teachers in Ikoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State. There are 40 Social Studies teachers in public junior secondary schools in Ikoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State. This is contained in a detailed information manual with specific number of Social Studies teachers in each of the Local Government Area of Edo State. A sample of twenty (20) teachers was selected from the total number of teachers in the public junior secondary schools in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area. The sample was selected using the multi-stage sampling techniques. The first stage involved the classification of schools into rural and urban. The next stage was the use of simple random sampling technique. This was done selecting equal number of teachers from the sampled schools of the population. The instrument that was used for the collection of data is the structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was titled “Questionnaire on Problems and Prospects of Teaching Social studies(QPPTSS). The content validity was used to ascertain the validity of the instrument, while the test re-test reliability was used to determine the reliability of the instrument.

The Findings of this study clearly revealed that there are lacks of relevant instructional materials for teaching Social Studies like maps, textbooks, globes. The major problem for teaching Social Studies in junior secondary schools is teachers of other subject area teaching Social Studies in most schools. Based on these findings, it was recommended that the problem of Social Studies can be solved if qualified Social Studies teachers are employed. Government should increase the salary of Social Studies teachers.