QUALITY TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMME AND ACADEMIC STAFF PERFORMANCE OF IGNATIUS AJURU UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION PORT HARCOURT

Teacher education programme is indispensible for quality education as “no education system can rise above the quality of its teachers”. Based on this philosophy, the Nigerian Government perceived teacher education programme as a means of raising and training qualified, highly motivated and conscientious teachers, into the teaching field. The resultant effect of this recruitment process is to enhance quality service delivery (job performance) in the system. Hence this study investigated “Quality Teacher Education Programme and Academic Staff Performance in Ignatius Ajuru University of Education Port Harcourt”. The objective of the study is to establish relationship between intrinsic interest arousal through Teacher Education programme, professional self-development and the academic staff performance of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education. Three (3) research questions and 2 hypotheses guided the study. Correlational research design was adopted in the study. The population of the study was 420 lecturers of which 205 were selected for the study using simple random sampling. An instrument titled “Quality Teacher Education Programme and Academic Staff Performance Questionnaire (QTEPSAPQ)” was used for data collection. Two experts validated the instrument and the Cronbach Alpha index of 0.78 established the reliability of the instrument. Descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation were employed to answer the research questions while Regression Analysis was used to test the hypotheses with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Software of version 20. The findings of the study revealed that academic staff members’ intrinsic interest as well as professional self-development of the lecturers directly and positively related to their job performance. Hence, teacher education programme is a predictor of academic staff performance. Therefore, the study recommends, government and the school management should ensure that subsequent recruitment exercises of the institution are based on teaching qualification. This will help to filter out quacks from the educational system in order to encourage professionalism within the teaching field, to ensure quality service delivery.