PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE OF PRIMARY EDUCATION OBJECTIVES AND PUPILS DEVELOPMENT

The study was set out to examine the primary school teachers’ awareness of primary education objectives, their perception of the teaching profession and their concern for the affective and cognitive development of pupils’ in primary schools, in Ibadan North Local government area of Oyo State Nigeria. To achieve the objective, four research questions were raised. The design adopted in carrying out the study was descriptive research design. The population of the study covered all the 1,821 teachers in the 74 public primary schools in Ibadan North local government area of Oyo State. Using the simple random sampling method, 50% of the schools were sampled giving a sample of 37 schools. The probability proportionate to size (PPS) sampling technique was used to sample 454 teachers. The data for the study, generated through the use of self-constructed but validated questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.87 were analyzed using frequency counts and simple percentages. The findings of the study revealed that an average of 72.35% of the teachers sampled have the knowledge of primary school education objectives in Nigeria. However, below average of the teachers perceived teaching as a lucrative profession (43.57%). Also, majority of the teachers have interest in the cognitive and affective development of their pupils. Finally, some problems which include irregularity in salary payment, inadequate teachers’ textbooks, and inadequate provision of school supervision among others were identified as impediments to effective performance of primary school teachers. Based on the findings, it was recommended that government should pay teachers’ salaries regularly, intensify inspection of schools, purchase and supply current textbooks adequately to schools among others.