Teacher quality and secondary school effectiveness in Ilorin South Local Government Area, Kwara State, Nigeria

This paper investigated teacher quality and secondary school effectiveness. The study was conducted to determine the extent to which teacher professional qualification and teacher experience could influence school effectiveness. It was a descriptive survey. The study population comprised the 17public secondary schools in Ilorin South Local Government Area of Kwara State, Nigeria; out of which10 were selected using the random sampling technique. Also, 15 students were randomly selected from each of the sampled schools, making a total of 150 respondents. ‘Teacher Quality Questionnaire’ (TQQ) and ‘School Effectiveness Questionnaire’ (SEQ) were used to collect data. The instruments were validated and their reliability co-efficient, determined by the test-retest method, were 0.71 and 0.77 respectively. The data collected were analysed using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistic. The findings revealed that there was a significant relationship between teacher quality and school effectiveness (calculated r-value of .323 was greater than the critical r-value of .198 at the 0.05 level of significance). Also, there was a significant relationship between teacher professional qualification and school effectiveness, (calculated r-value of .306 was greater than the critical r-value of .198 at the 0.05 level of significance). These findings implied that high quality teachers were essential for a school to achieve its objectives. The paper therefore, recommended that ministries of education should intensify in-service training for teachers, and give attractive incentives to them so that they could stay long in their jobs and perform their duties effectively