ABSTRACT: This study investigated School Facilities and Teaching of Biology in Secondary Schools.. A survey research design was employed in the study. The population of the study was twenty five (25) Biology teachers from ten (10) public Secondary Schools in the area. The instrument for this study was a questionnaire titled “Questionnaire on school facilities and teaching effectiveness (QSFTE)”. The data collected were analyzed using simple percentage. The study revealed that availability of laboratory and libraries facilities influences teaching effectiveness in Biology in Essien Udim Local Government Area. Based on the findings it was recommended that Biology teachers should develop positive attitude towards the use of Laboratory and library facilities for their teaching as this will developed their proficiency in the teaching of Biology in secondary schools.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Schools are established for the purpose of teaching and learning. It is also more important that the teachers and learners are properly accommodated to facilitate the teaching and learning process. There has been an increasing attempt by educationists and psychologists over the years to look for ways of enhancing educational outcome of learners as well as output of teachers. Many studies have been carried out to show that among other things, school facilities enhance teaching and learning effectiveness in sciences.
Ekanem (2001) has shown that the school facilities assist teachers in making their lessons explicit to learners. Eneh and Nkang (2001) in postulation theory of cognitive development have shown that learners in schools function at the operational stage of mental development, one of the characteristics of the students at this stage of development is that they hardly remember what they learn except taught in concrete form. It is when learning experiences are made in concrete form that learners can remember what they learn and one way of making learning experiences concrete is by teaching the students with school facilities such as laboratory, library and sporting facilities among others.
Akinfolarin (2008) identified school facilities as the major factor contributing to the teaching and learning effectiveness in the school system. These include equipped laboratories and libraries. Different studies conducted by Ayodele (2000) and Vandiver (2011) showed that a positive relationship exists between availability of facilities in schools and teaching effectiveness. Similarly, Miller (2003) asserted that the teaching of science could be made easy and interesting for students if the facilities such as laboratory facilities and library facilities in the school are available and utilized in the teaching and learning process. It is also noted that a well prepared instruction could be destroyed by non-availability or improper utilization of school facilities by the teachers.
According to Boniface (2012) utilization of laboratory and library facilities in teaching assists the teachers as the manager of the instructional process in the arrangement of the mechanics of the presentation and also in planning the whole instructional process and limited or completely absence of these facilities could pose a serious problem in the teaching of science (Biology inclusive). Again few available ones are sometimes not utilized in the teaching-learning process making teaching to be in effective.
It is against this background that it becomes necessary to investigate the extent to which school facilities such as laboratory and library facilities influence the teaching effectiveness of Biology in secondary schools in Essien Udim Local Government Area.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The act of teaching is fundamentally concerned with parsing ideas, skills and attitude from the teacher to the learners. In Nigeria for example, experience has shown that spoken words done in the communication of ideas are grossly ineffective and inefficient in producing desired learning outcomes. Every year, when the results of public examinations are released, there has been mass failure in biology.
On the fore-going scholars like Ekong (2014) have emphasized that we learn and remember 10% of what we hear, 40% of what we discuss with others and as high as 80% of what we experience directly or practice. However, the question is could the mass failure be attributed to lack of school facilities to be used by teachers during the teaching of biology? and could the availability of laboratory and library facilities in schools influence the teaching effectiveness of teachers in Biology. Finding answers to these questions and many more summarizes the entire problem of this study.
