Abstract

This work entitled “the influence of teachers’ mastery of subject matter on students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Buea sub-division” sought to explore the various ways by which teachers plan and implement their lessons and their effects on students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Buea Sub-Division. According to Tambo (2003), a research design is a blue print which specifies how data related to a particular problem can be collected, measured, and analyzed from a given population or data. Here the case study in qualitative research design will be used which is the survey research design.

The survey research design studies only a small population and the feeling is generalized to a population. This study was carried out in some selected schools in the Buea Municipality. The schools include; Government High School Buea Town and Baptist High School Great Soppo, the instrument used for the collection of data for this study was an interview guide which was designed reflecting the two research question.

It was therefore recommended that government should provide adequate teaching and learning materials to ease teaching and learning, draw up the curriculum considering learners needs or objectives and interest, carry out training programs for teachers and formulating policies that motivate the teachers and encourage creativity. This will help improve on student’s attainment of facts since teaching will be done in a more effective and efficient way.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

In this chapter the researcher will handle the following sub-topics: background of the study (historical and contextual) statement of the problem, objective of the study, research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study and operational definition of terms.

Background of the study

Historical Background

Education according to Good (1973) is the aggregate of all processes by means of which people developed abilities, attitudes and informs of behaviours which are of positive values to themselves and to the society in which they live. Students’ academic performance has always been considering to be influenced by teachers’ mastery of the subject matter which can be seen from the way they plan and implement lessons.

Good lesson plan is essential to the process of teaching and learning. A teacher who is well prepared in his or her lesson plan will eventually lead to a successful instructional experience. They development of interesting lessons is worthless if interesting procedures along with classroom management techniques are not in evidence. There is a large body of research patterning to lesson plan and implementation and the significance of classroom management

Looking at Cameroon secondary school education, planning and implementation of lesson greatly influences student academic performance. For this reason the Cameroon government have taken some measures to increase effective training of teachers in their subject areas. The provision of teachers training colleges by the government of Cameroon such as Higher Teachers Training Colleges, ENS Bambili, Bertoua, Yaounde and Maroua, ENSET Kumba and Ebolowa and curriculum studies and teaching department in the university of Buea such as CST History, CST English and CST Geography. This is to train teachers which are deeply rooted into curriculum subject help to improve on teachers planning and implementation of lessons, in order to better off students’ academic performance.

In 1957, they government through ministerial decision number 38 of September 13 1967 created an annex of the advance teachers training college L’Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) Yaoundé, the school of education of the federal university of Cameroon specialize in the training of teachers. In 2007 ministerial decision number 000009/MINESUP/of 27 march 2009, professor Jacques Fame Ndongo the minister of higher Education. The institution was given a full flesh statue with the creation of 18 department integrating training for general and technical education teachers for secondary schools.

Following decree N° 2010 /372 of 14 December 2010 creating the university of Bamenda. It was divided into two professional teachers training schools; Higher Teachers Training College (HTTC) to train teachers of Secondary General Education and higher technical teachers training college HTTC to train teachers of Secondary technical education ENSET. The aim of this teachers training colleges I to improve the quality of teaching and learning in Cameroon, increase the number of qualified teachers and propose different carrier opportunities to qualify students.

Elia Nungwe (2014) the Department Of Curriculum Studies and teaching (CST) is committed to the production of qualified teachers for Cameroon Educational systems. The goals of this department is to prepare development oriented teachers of quality for Secondary schools and teachers training colleges as well as university level education and to promote Pedagogic excellence at all levels of Cameroon education.

To ensure a proper training of teachers in these teacher training colleges of Cameroon, the government and stake holders of the countries have put in certain measure to ensure proper training of teachers.

Nalova Endeley (2014) the setting of specific training goals with a committee that include top management, prepare materials and space the process of the organization of teaching practice and preparation is an important component of teachers educating programs and the quality of supervision and duration one key in achieving effectiveness which is an indicator of the quality of teachers trained.

Contextual background

The Cameroon educational system consist of pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher education components. By the stipulation of education law N°98/004 of April 1998 which laid down guide lines for primary and secondary education in Cameroon.

In context of teaching as Leke Tambo quotes “for a sea captain to be able to sail a ship successfully from one part of the world to another, he or she must have a clear idea about things like direction wind system the behaviour of the crew members and technical working of the ship, by the same, a teacher can successfully manage the learning process only if he/she has a clear idea about the nature of the children, how human beings leant the purpose of education and the role of the teacher.

In the Cameroon context, teacher mastery of subject matter can be seen in terms of academic qualifications, professional training, seminars, and longevity of service and pedagogic practice. In terms of academic qualification, a secondary school teacher in Cameroon should be a holder of a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. Professionally a public secondary school teacher is expected to have undergone training in a professional. He/she is expected to be a holder of diplôme pour les professeurs des Lycée des Enseignements Générale (DIPIEG). Meaning diploma for assistant teacher of training colleges (Tchombe, 2000)

Teacher mastery of subject matter can also be seen in terms of lesson plan pre-preparation, methodology and evaluation strategies. Tsafack (2003) points out that everyone can teach but to teach well one must master the general and special didactics specific to our subject. Given that assessment will be united with teaching process. The teacher must equally study and master methods of assessment of the symbols and of learning by the students.

This therefore means that the teachers should know how to set a faithful and valid examination, know how to conduct it and how to mark and interprete it. Besides, the above teacher’s physical appearance as seen in his or her attire, the language he/she uses, his or her social and moral altitude also account for teachers mastery of subject matter. In the context of this study, teacher’s mastery of subject matter will be seen in terms of teacher teaching experience, teachers academic qualification, teachers’ personality traits, and motivational aspects.

Statement of the Problem

A lesson plan is a step by step guide that provide a structure for an essential learning. Before planning a lesson, it is essential to classify the leaning outcomes for the class. It is important because it helps the teacher in maintaining a standard pattern and does not deviate from it. The lesson plan that is developed in this class will be designed to communicate first and foremost to you as a teacher.

Research shows that most teachers go to class without a lesson plan and when they do this it shows that the lesson will not be delivered appropriately which will greatly influence students’ performance academically. Due to this existence of lack of lesson planning by teachers into classrooms, some students find difficult to understand teachers because of this problem and are not able to succeed in their academic performance. It is this observation that has influenced the researcher to investigate teacher’s planning and implementation of lesson influencing student academic performance in the Buea sub division.

Objectives of the Study

General Objectives

To find out how teachers planning, implementation, evaluation and feedback of lesson influence, student academic performance

Specific objective

1. To determine how teachers planning of lesson influence students’ academic performance
2. To investigate how teachers’ implementation of their lesson influence students’ academic performance

Research Question

General research question

How do teachers plan, implementation, evaluation and feedback of lesson influence, student academic performance?

Specific Research Questions

1. How does teachers plan of lesson influence students’ academic performance?
2. To what extent teacher’s implementation of their lesson influence students’ academic performance?