CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Effectiveness of government policies and
efforts toward educational development in any nation or state depends on the
extent to which teachers are empowered as well as how far the policies and
programmes that can enhance teachers’ empowerment are implemented. Kay (2009:94) stated
that, “an educational
development can not realize its objectives and promote human development if
teachers in such a system are not materially, skillfully, intellectually and
otherwise empowered”. The major function of teachers is to teach especially in schools
and to impart knowledge to individuals in the society. Teachers are principal
agents of social change. Teachers are one of the agents through which a nation
realizes her educational objectives. They inculcate the contents of the
academic curriculum in the pupils and the students so as to achieve positive
results. Teachers are agents of national development. They help to model the
characters of the citizens of any nation or society. They impart skills, expertise,
knowledge and ideas in the learners in order to enable them contribute positively
to the social, economic and political development of the society.
Empowerment
is based on the idea that when employees are endowed with skills, resources, authority,
opportunity, motivation and held responsible and accountable for outcome of their
actions, their competence, proficiency and productivity will improve. Thus, Udu
and Amah (20l2) posit that, employee empowerment is a management strategy that
aims at giving employee the tools and resources necessary to make confident
decisions in the workplace without supervision. Empowerment of front-line
workers is crucial if organizations want to understand core business processes,
because from-line workers are closest to these processes and are the only ones
who really understand how they work. Hence, in the educational industry,
teachers are the front-line workers who really understand how a nation’s
educational policies can be put into pragmatic effects in order to promote a
nation’s social economic, political, cultural and other aspects of development.
Teachers therefore need to be effectively empowered. Empowerment of teachers is
very important because, it reveal talented, resourceful and competent teachers who
were previously unrecognized and the processes of empowerment create circumstances
in which such teachers can flourish,
thereby contributing to the overall realization of a nation’s educational
objectives. It is to this end that, lzunwa (2012) asserts that, empowerment is
the process of enhancing the capacity of individuals or group to make choice
and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes.
According
to Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN 2008) teachers’ empowerment policies
include , in service training policy, staff promotion policy, scholarship
scheme policy, mandatory continuing professional development policy and sandwich programmes etc. When analyzed
further, one will observe that, the federal Government policy on teacher’s empowerment
covers such areas as personal development of teachers, their professional
development, motivational empowerment and infrastructural development. These
areas of empowerment cover such empowerment tools as staff promotion, bonuses,
fringe benefits, regular payment, availability of infrastructures for easy
service delivery, in-service training, scholarship scheme, sandwich programmes
etc.
These
policies aim at making available to teachers all that they need to effectively discharge
their duties. They are also aimed at allowing teachers greater freedom, autonomy
and self- control in their works as well as active participation in decision making
process in the education sectors, in line with the above views, stated in the
Education policy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria(2008), lgwe (2010) state
that the contents of teachers’ empowerment policies in Nigeria can be
summarized in such government programmes as organizing periodic trainings,
workshops and conferences for teachers, providing teachers with text books,
note books and instructional materials, giving the teachers adequate
remunerations, promotions and other incentives that will motivate them to bring
out their best in the teaching process.
Mulins
(2010) underscored the impacts of empowerment on employee’s effectiveness and
performance when he stated that an empowered employee who is motivated becomes
more committed to his job and remain very productive. Empowerment provides for
greater job satisfaction, motivation and commitment. Teachers’ empowerment therefore
improves their performance and productivity. Suffices it to say from the
foregoing that, the extent to which teachers empowerment polices are
implemented by the government will determine the level of performance and
career competence displayed by teachers. Effective implementation of teachers
empowerment policies help to endow teachers with the required skills, intercultural
prowess, expertise and knowledge that is necessary for efficient service delivery.
According to Adirika (2010) effective implementation of teachers" empowerment
policies help teachers to evaluate their own attitude in conjunction with their
professional colleagues in other parts of the education service. lt helps
teachers to develop criteria which will help them assess their own teaching
roles in relation to a changing society for which the schools must equip their
pupils and advance their career.
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