DETERMINATION AND COMPARISON OF THE QUALITY OF LECTURERS IN THE OPEN AND CONVENTIONAL UNIVERSITIES IN LINE WITH THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES COMMISSION BENCHMARK

Kareem Adeyinka Oluwaseun

Department of Science and Technology Education,

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State

Email: adeyinkareem@gmail.com

Abstract

The study determined and compared the quality of lecturers that Implement BEC in both types of the University. These were with a view to providing information about the gap in the implementation of BEC as well as determine the level of implementation of BEC in both university types. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population for the study comprised of all Biology Education lecturers and the departments that handle Biology Education courses in both University types in Southwestern Nigeria. All the three Federal Universities that offer Biology Education except the newly established Federal University in Ekiti State and the Open University Study Centre in the states where they are located were used for the study. The study sample included all Biology Education lecturers found in the selected schools. One research instrument was used for the study, namely: Biology Education Lecturers Questionnaire (BELQ). BELQ was used to collect data about the Universities’ Biology Education lecturers. The instruments were validated by curriculum experts in the Faculty of Education in Obafemi Awolowo University and thus were judged reliable. A reliability of 0.84 for BELQ was obtained for the instruments using Cronbach Alpha Co-efficient. The data collected were analyzed using the descriptive statistics of frequency and percentages. It was revealed from the study that the Open University Study Centres have a low level of availability of facilitators (lecturers) while the lecturers of the Conventional Universities have a high level of content knowledge and year of experience but low level of pedagogical knowledge. The study concluded that there is a difference in the attainment of the specified conditions in both University types. It concluded that most of the BEC lecturers do not have educational qualification to produce trained Biology teachers.