CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Christian Religious Studies (CRS) forms part of the basic national curriculum for Junior Secondary Schools this may be a surprising fact but it has come up to be the truth and nothing but the truth. Some individuals have linked religious with social habituation and they have also gone a long way to argue that it has no consign in either a working environment or a schools. At the same time, others believe CRS have to be about fostering students within a meticulous religious faith system. Over the years, CRS has actively been known to be a strong promoter of the values of genuineness fairness, honesty, deference for all and care of the environment CRS consign specific emphasis on children appreciating themselves and others, it teaches us the real responsibility of family and the community in religious principle and action, the contentment of diversity in society through of acknowledgment of their similarities and differences, and individual custodianship on earth. CRS is also acquainted with shilling environment of the general public, including transformations in religious practice and appearance and the authority of religion in the neighborhood, homes, state and in the universal society. The importance of teachers in teaching CRS cannot be overstressed. This is because teachers play a number of roles. Specifically, teachers have been referred to by Oyedeji (1998) as agents of innovation. For meaningful innovations, adequate availability of teachers’ is very important. The complexity arises as a result of several factors which include determination of what effective teachers are: Teachers are expected to fulfill a variety of roles, some common to all teachers, others uniquely related to certain kinds of environment of students or subject matter. Added to this, is the fact that teacher education involves the training of professionals who will educate students in the future despite the complexity in the field of teacher education. One cannot overemphasize the importance of academic training of teachers of all categories. This is because the efficiency of any institution depends on the academic competence of the teaching staff since no educational system can- rise above the quality of its teacher (FGN, 1981 P.38). Teachers are important in any educational system. This is because the quality of teachers in any educational system determines to a great extent the quality of the system itself. Professional teachers in particular are crucial to the formulation and successful implementation to education policies in any country. This has explained why our National Policy on Education N.P.E. (2004) stressed the need to accord teacher education a prominent place in educational planning. The policy further maintained that among other things, the goal of teacher-education should be: To Peters (1977), quality is the basic and indispensable feature of a thing, which differentiates it from other things. The presence of that characteristic feature to a high degree marks it out as a “thing of high quality” on the other hand, the absence or the thing to a low quality status. For example, the characteristic of a high quality teacher relates to those attributes that enhance the fitness and efficiency of that teacher in performing the duties that are associated with teaching CRS. That is, a high quality CRS teacher is one who can competently achieve the objectives of teaching CRS in our schools. At this point it will be pertinent to state that a professional CRS teacher is a professionally prepared CRS teacher in contents and methods of teaching Christian Religious Studies, thereby acquiring a professional degree in education with special reference to any of the CRS subject. For example, a professional university degree teacher is expected to have B.Sc. (Rons) with a Post-Graduate Diploma in Religious Studies Any other teacher with qualifications outside the above one can be categorized as a non-professional CRS teacher. There is greater demand for highly creative and innovative teachers in Nigeria today who can lead students onto paths of meaningful learning. An effective and efficient teacher is also one of the necessary factors to effective instruction in all subjects including Christian religious studies