GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT

The mission of teacher education should strive for excellence in the preparation of teachers that would be free from the fetters of routinization of tasks, rationalized curricula and specified or sequenced role. Rather, teacher education should equip the would-be teachers with knowledge, skills and dexterity in their special areas and technical strategies to enable maximum flexibilities in responding to the dynamics of development in a progressive country (Omolade, 2024). The Nigeria Certificate in Education (N.C.E) is the minimum qualification for entry into the teaching profession, thus Colleges of Education has a great task of churning out graduands that have both the curriculum knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, in order to fulfill their roles efficiently in the Basic Education years – pre-primary education or Early Childhood Care and Education, primary education, junior secondary education, adult and Non-formal education. The study aimed at investigating into the academic programme (the N.C.E. curriculum) and how it affects students’ graduation from the College of Education within the stipulated period of three academic sessions. That is, why students fail to graduate after studying for five academic sessions in Colleges of Education that has 3-year study period. Four research questions and four research hypotheses were postulated to guide the study. Literature were reviewed on history of teacher education in Nigeria, academic load and students’ performance, unethical practices by lecturers that may cause students to stay longer in the school, and e-registration (closure of registration portals) that had elongated students graduation years. The research design adopted was a survey design. Three Colleges of Education in the South-South Zone of Nigeria were used as the study areas; using N.C.E.1, 2, 3, Extra Year I and Extra Year 2 as respondents. A Questionnaire was given to the sampled respondents. The data collected were analyzed using Pearson (r) correlation statistical method.