CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND

Education is a good instrument for the comprehensive development of the human beings where the whole body is effectively utilized to achieve a pre-determined set of objectives, (A.E. Ejili and N.O. Anyanwu, 2006). It is a complex process which starts to improve out lives as soon as we are born, and continues to do so until we die. According to F.H. Aguba (2006: 58) “The aim of education is the production of good men, that is, for one to be educated, one must be prepared to use the knowledge of what is good and must be prepared to use the knowledge in the service of God and humanity. We can say that, education is a process of acquiring ideas, skills and values that facilitate the development of the learner and the society at large. It is concerned with the development of the society. The nation recognizes the importance of teacher education when they continued to give a major emphasis in all out educational planning. This is basically because no educational system can rise above the quality of its teachers, that is to say that the quality of the teachers in any country determines the quality of her education and the level of national development.

The National Policy on Education of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1998) outlined the purpose of teacher education as follows;

a) to produce highly motivated, conscientious effective classroom teacher for all learning in our educational system.

b) to encourage further the spirit of enquiry and creativity in teachers;

c) to help teachers to fit into the society of the community and the society at large and to enhance their commitment to national objectives;

d) to provides teachers with intellectual professional background adequate for assignment and to make them adaptable to any changing situation not only in the life of their country but to the wider world;

e) to enhance teachers commitment to the teaching profession.

Teaching practice is a very important aspect of any teacher training programme. It is a student-teacher and prospective regular teacher what housemanship is to young medical doctor. Questions may be asked – why does a young lawyer on being called to the Bar choose first to understudy an older and more experienced lawyer? Why do young medical doctors go for housemanship under the more experienced ones? Why do vocational education students go on Industrial Training? Likewise, why do student-teachers or prospective teachers go on Teacher Practice? These questions and their answers are very similar. No human being anywhere would have to face some dangers that could be avoided. There is a popular adage which says that “Prevention is always better than cure” or “a stitch in time, saves nine”. Most of the student-teachers do not seem to be fully aware of this fact, may be because of the small proportion of the entire time allocated to teaching, he needs to go through adequate and appropriate teaching practice experience.