Browsing by Author "OLOFINTOYE, Blessing Olubunmi"

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    CHILDHOOD EDUCATION TEACHER TRAINING AND TEACHING OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS: IMPLICATIONS FOR NIGERIAN TEACHER EDUCATION
    (Early Childhood Association of Nigeria, 2019) ADEDIGBA, Olabisi; OLOFINTOYE, Blessing Olubunmi
    The National Policy on Education recommended that teachers be trained in Early Childhood and Primary Education (Childhood Education) to ensure that pupils are handled by the specialists in the field. The expectation here is that every teacher who is specially trained for this purpose should be able to teach all subjects. successfully. Can this be totally realised .if the teachers' competence in teaching of Science and Mathematics is to be measured? Can we boldly say the trainee teachers do receive a substantive content knowledge of the subjects with their pedagogical knowledge which is the dominant feature of most of ECE and primary curriculum the authors reviewed? Is taking the courses as minors/teaching subjects sufficient to train teachers in Science and Mathematics needed to lay a solid foundation for science and technology at elementary level? Are curriculums of teacher education in ECE and primary education rich in Science and Mathematics content? Answers to these pertinent questions all have implications for teacher education. Therefore, this paper highlights the role of Teacher Education (TE), discusses the importance of teaching Science and Mathematics in childhood education and the competence of teachers of these subjects. It also identifies some problems related to the training of childhood teachers and the teaching of Science and Mathematics and offers suggestions on how teacher preparation for early childhood and primary education can be improved for effective teaching and learning of Science and Mathematics at early years and basic education.