ABSTRACT
In many developing nations of the world, Nigeria not an exception, education is regarded as one of the major wheels for achieving notable development. Government over the years has formulated a number of policies aimed at developing education at all levels (primary, secondary and tertiary ). While some policies succeeded, others failed due to poor implementation. The aforementioned fact prompted this research work titled ‘Policy implementation and achievement of quality education: A study of public secondary schools in Kosofe Local Government of Lagos State’. Policies examined in this study include; curriculum development policy, teachers’ recruitment policy, students/teacher ratio policy, teachers’ welfare policy, supervision/monitoring policy, among others. Survey research design method which involved self- designed questionnaire in collecting data from 120 participants was used for the study . Relevant literature were reviewed to bring out prominent issues on the subject matter of this research work. The information for the study was gathered through primary and secondary methods of data collection. Frequency units and percentages were used to analyze the background and to answer research questions while chi-square was used for hypothesis testing. The study revealed that educational policies were not adequately implemented due to some factors which included inadequate fund , insufficient educational facilities, inadequate qualified teachers, political instability among others, though the policies were formulated to instill certain skills in students for individual’s sake and societal development. The study recommended that government should invest heavily in education by providing adequate and well equipped classrooms and laboratories in learning environment as well as ensuring proper maintenance of equipment and facilities in schools with regular and effective monitoring . The study also recommended the inclusion of social and democratic values along with psychomotor competencies in the curriculum among others.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
Education is known to play a pivotal role in the development of a nation. The benefits that education offer are almost in -exhaustive, hence individuals and the society at large care for the provision of qualitative education in a nation/state. For instance, education in Nigeria is an instrument per excellence for effecting national development {FGN.2004}.Education is, thus, expected to play a different roles in national development. This is the reason government invests heavily in the education of its citizens. Secondary education, a subset of the education system, is very necessary in human capital formation. It is the supply base from which tertiary institutions draw their major clientele (students} for admission into their different programmes. It therefore, presupposes that the provision of qualitative education is a sine qua non for the attainment of national educational objectives in particular and Developmental objectives in general.
The apparent decline in the quality of secondary education in Nigeria and the moral decadence in the society have generated lots of concern among the generality of Nigerians.
Government at both the state and federal levels have rolled out series of educational policies aimed at addressing the poor standard of education. Yet, the situation seems to defy a solution. The yearly results of students who sit for Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) are nothing to write home about as a result of inaccessibility to quality education by majority of the students in the secondary schools.
In Nigeria today, quality education has almost become the exclusive preserve of children from rich homes who can afford to pay the private school fees while children from less privileged backgrounds could afford only public schools. Public secondary school students in some parts of Lagos state and indeed most of the states of the federation are taught in an environment with decayed infrastructure, staffed with poorly paid teachers.
Quality Education has become one of the central issues accorded priority in recent educational reform and quality assurance is one of the mechanisms used in achieving it.
At the broadest level, quality education can be viewed as a set of elements that constitutes the input, process and output of the education system which provides services that completely satisfy both internal and external, constituencies by meeting their explicit and implicit expectations, ((Fisher and Grey 2005) .
Harvay and Knight (1996) suggest that quality can be broken down into five different but related dimensions:
1. Quality as exceptional (e.g high standards)
2. Quality as consistency (e.g zero defects)
3. Quality as fitness for purpose (fitting customer specifications)
4. Quality as value for money.
5. Quality as transformative (an ongoing process that includes empowerment and enhancement of the customer satisfaction).
Policy on the other hand serves the purpose of ensuring that every official action of an organisation has a basis or a backing. Miller (2002), noted that a policy is a historical or contemporary statement or series of statements which describe and/ or prescribe a course of action. These statements are usually written but they could be oral. They may or may not imply contractual legal obligations. Additionally, a policy may be developed at different organisational levels and may be binding for only that level or other levels as well.
A policy could be seen as an overall guide that gives the general limits and direction in which an administrative action will follow. A policy brings about a meaningful relationship between business objectives and organisational functions as it discourages deviations from planned courses of action. Moreover, a policy ensures consistency of action because an organisation is governed by approved principles.
A policy does not have to be rigid, as there should be room for adjustment, if necessary, after its formulation. Perhaps, this is why Odunuga and Ajila (2000) believe that ‘’policies are not only formulated but also programmed, communicated monitored and evaluated’’.
The non-rigidity of policies is confirmed by Ademola (2007) describes policy making as a process of successive approximation to some desired objectives, in which what is desired itself continue to change under consideration’’. In fact, a good policy is one that can be reviewed as the need arises. Lindblom believes that a wise decision maker cannot expect a hundred percent success of all policies. Regardless of how good a policy is, its implementation may introduce some elements of imperfection. In education, as in other fields of human endeavour, every official action has a backing. This is the purpose of policy. Educational policies provide the direction for educational activities.
Education, according to Fuller (2004) consists of 2 components. Fuller classified these two components into inputs and outputs. According to him, inputs consists of human and material resources and outputs are the goals and outcome of education process. Both the inputs and outputs form a dynamic organic whole and if one wants to investigate and assess the educational system in order to improve the performance, effects of one component on the other must be examined.
Instructional resources which are educational inputs are of vital importance to the teaching of any subject in the school curriculum. It helps in depth understanding of the lesson by the students in such that lesson is made attractive thereby arresting their attention and in turn motivating them to learn better. It is also very important to have sufficient and adequate human resources in terms of qualified teachers for the teaching of all subjects in the school curriculum. Without the teachers as the implementing factors, the goals of educational policies cannot be achieved.
In order to achieve a just and egalitarian society as spelt out in the Nigerian National Policy of Education (2004), schools should be properly and uniformly equipped to promote sound and effective teaching. Suitable textbooks, qualified teachers and well equipped libraries should be provided for schools. Scarcity of these will hinder the educational system from responding more fully to new demand.
Education occurs in many forms for many purposes through many institutions. Examples include early childhood education, kindergarten through to 12th grade, two and four year colleges or universities, graduate and professional education, adult education and job training. Therefore, education policy can directly affect the education people engage in at all ages.