Assessment of Quality Assurance of English Language Teacher Education in Tertiary Institutions in Enugu State

Abstract

The study assessed the quality assurance of English Language teacher education in tertiary institutions in Enugu State. Five research questions were posed and answered by this study and two hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted mixed descriptive design involving quantitative (survey) and qualitative methods (observation) to collect primary data. The population of the study is 1290 respondents comprising 93 lecturers and 1197 students of the Department of English Language in four tertiary institutions in Enugu State. There was no sampling because of the small size of the population. The instrument for data collection was a research developed questionnaire titled Quality Assurance Questionnaire (QAQ) and Observation Schedule. The instrument was given to three experts for validation. The instruments were face validated by five experts. The internal consistency of the questionnaire items was determined using Cronbach Alpha procedure and it yielded the following reliability indices: 0.80 with 0.87, 0.75, 0.88 and 0.71. One thousand two hundred and ninety (1290) copies of the questionnaires were administered to the respondents. Out of this figure, one thousand two hundred and seventy-one (1271) were retrieved and used for analyses, while the remaining 19 copies were invalid. The data collected were analyzed using frequency and percentage for section A, and mean and standard deviation for section B. Independent Sample t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.5 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that tertiary institutions in Enugu State have qualified English Language lecturers, but have low quality English Language teaching environment. The lecturers have high level knowledge of the content of the English Language and have the pedagogical skills for teaching the subject. Instructional materials for teaching of English Language were not adequate. It was recommended that: the state and federal government should assist in improving the quality of English Language teaching environment in Nigeria through funding, maintenance and provision of physical facilities. Vice-Chancellors and Provosts in tertiary institutions in Nigeria should use internally generated revenue to improve the quality of teaching environment of the departments in the institutions, especially, the Department of English Language. The Head of Departments of English Language in various institutions should contribute to improving the quality of the teaching environment by seeking funds from the school and other relevant agencies. They should also utilize internally generated funds to improve the quality of the departments.