CHALLENGE OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENUGU STATE

Abstract

Chemistry education has been identified to be one of the major bedrock for the transformation of our national economy, and hence must be accorded adequate attention. In this study, an attempt was made in ascertaining the the challenges affecting teaching of chemistry in secondary schools in Oji-River L.G.A. of Enugu State. Specifically, the study ascertains the extent student’s attitude towards chemistry and inadequacy of laboratory equipment affect effective teaching of chemistry in secondary schools in Enugu State. The population for this study consists of nineteen secondary schools in Oji-River L.G.A. of Enugu State.  A two-stage sampling approach was used to constitute the sample of 180 students spread through SS1-SS3 in the two sampled schools. Data for the study was collected through questionnaire administered to the sampled school students. The collected data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, and hypotheses were tested with t-test statistical tool with aid of SPSS version 20. The study found that student’s attitude towards chemistry and inadequacy of laboratory equipment is among the challenges influencing the effective teaching of chemistry in secondary schools in Enugu State. The study therefore recommended among others that ggovernment should be monitoring the distributed financial, human and material resources equally to all schools irrespective of location or level for effective utilization. When chemistry teachers are faced with the problem of non-availability of materials/equipment for practical purposes, they should improvise.