CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      Background of the study

The How fast the world has grown, from the days of the primitive man, to the days of the medieval man and down to the day of the modern man. The world at large seen by the myopic man as two ends two far to be reached, has so soon been conquered by great minds. It is generally believed that education is the bed rock for every technological and economic development of any Nation. As a result of that, the three (3) tiers of governments are trying to reform educational system through training of teachers by giving them scholarships, good conditions of service, enhanced salaries and pay them salaries as at when due. Despite this efforts made by the governments, there is still persistent increase in failure rate as always indicated in the annual reports by the national examination bodies such as WAEC, NECO, NATEB and JAMB. The failure rate has led to numerous researches that looked at the teachers’ method of teaching, teachers’ characteristics, teachers attitude and students’ attitudes towards education and its attendant effects on academic performance of students as a result of the failure rate, the teaching process seems to move from teacher centred to student-centred method of teaching, yet the story almost remain the same many studies have revealed that students have poor attitude towards education and as a result of that academic performance is affected negatively. Hence, for many years now in Nigeria, many people are in doubt of the quality of products of her education from primary, post primary and tertiary institutions. Education discourse on poor academic performance seems to be the issue of the day.Minds that saw the possibility of turning this vast globe too large to be explored into a global village, where the distance between two ends could be reached in split seconds. Much could be said about such great minds as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, men who through sound reasoning, birth fourth great ideas, that has so much impacted the world. But I believe that much more could be said about a set of men born in a particular generation, without whose contribution, the world would have remained a vast globe, whose two ends could never be reached in split seconds. Men whom through their great inventions conquered the barrier of time and distance, through whose inventions one of the greatest gift to mankind was delivered, i would take a deep breath at this point to mention “The computer”.
Thanks to Charles Barbbage, John Nappier, Lady Ad Lovelace, and others for such great inventions. Without the computer, our world could not be complete, education with all its great prospects as a process of successfully training the young and instilling the moral values and otherwise into them could never be complete.Perhaps computer literacy may improve the knowledge and ability of students for higher academic performance. Computer literacy is the knowledge and ability to use computer and technology efficiently. Computer literacy can also be referred to the comfort level someone has by using computer programmes and other application that are related to computers. The occurrence of computer literacy continues to grow at an outstanding rate. A computer is an electronic device that has the ability to accept data, store data, process data by following a set of instructions (programme) to produce result. Computer always change; they become smaller, faster and more powerful. These changes have motivated the modern society to become comfortable with basic computer related skills.

Who invented the computer? Is not a question with a simple answer. The real answer is that many inventors contributed to the history of computer and that a computer is a complex piece of machinery made up of many parts, each of which can be considered a separate invention.
The first computers were people: that is electronic computers (and the earlier mechanical computers) were given the name because they performed what had been previously assigned to people.
The Abacus the first mechanical computation device was an early aid for mathematical computations. The Abacus is often wrongly attributed to China. In fact, the oldest surviving Abacus was used in 300 B.C. by the Babylonians. The modern Abacus consists of ring that slide over rods, and is still in use today, principally in the Far East. Following the Abacus, in 1617, an eccentric Scots man named John Napier invented logarithms, where the logarithms were carried on way sticks which are now called Napier bones. Napier invention led directly to the slide rule, first built in England in 1632 and still in use in the 1960’s by the NASA engineers of the mercury, Germini, and Apollo program which landed man on the moon. In 1642, Blaise Pascal, at age 19, invented the Pascaline as an aid for his father who was a task collector. This machine was capable of carrying out only addition and subtraction, which was otherwise known as the adding machine. In 1843, Charles Babbage invented the analytical engine which was capable of performing many complex tasks. The IBM in 1935 was invented, followed in quick succession between 1939 – 1944, by the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and calculator) developed by a team led by John W. Mauchly. Then in 1946, Mauchly developed an improved mode of ENIAC called EDVAC (Electronic Delay Value Accounting Calculator), with an additional function that stores program concept. Today we have computers that perform instruction faster and more reliably.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS

That the objectives of computer education in our country have not been achieved is evident that there are some underlying problems facing teachers in teaching computer science in Nigerian Secondary Schools, which could be:Teachers mastery of subject areaThe learning environment Lack of instructional materialsStudents attitudes
Teachers qualification

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study is to investigate the problem encountered by secondary school teachers in teaching computer science in secondary schools, but to aid the completion of the study the following specific objective was put forward:

i)             To ascertain the role of government in aiding effective teaching of computer science in secondary school

ii)           To investigate the impact of instructional material in the teaching of computer science

iii)          To ascertain the effect of computer literacy level on teaching computer science.

iv)         To proffer suggested solutions to the identified problem

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

To aid the completion of the study, the following research hypotheses were formulated by the researcher;

H0:government does not play any role in aiding effective teaching of computer in secondary schools by teachers

H1:government does play a role in aiding effective teaching of computer in secondary schools by teachers

H02:computer literacy level of the teachers does not affect proper teaching of computer science in secondary schools

H2:computer literacy level of the teachers does affect proper teaching of computer science in secondary schools

THE PURPOSE OF STUDY

The purpose of the study is to identify the problems facing teachers in teaching computer science following a brief investigation.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Nigerian secondary schools today lack behind in the computer science subject in comparison to some well developed countries. In this sense, the significance of this study cannot be over emphasized since the result from this investigation could help in setting standard requirements for computer science teachers, and help identify the basic challenge facing teachers, which if well treated could enhance teacher’s effectiveness and student learning in Nigerian secondary schools. Also, the growth of a nation starts from the grassroots level, if education at the local government level is well maintained, on the long run it may affect the education at the state level in general, following this investigation therefore, computer science in secondary school of Ikpoba-Okha, Oredo and Egor Local government Area of Edo State could be greatly improved, giving room for economic development on the long run.

LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This study is limited to some selected secondary schools in Ikpoba-Okha, Oredo and Egor Local Government Area of Edo State. Other factors which limited the scope of the study includes:

(a)Availability of research material: The research material available to the researcher is insufficient, thereby limiting the study.      

(b)Time: The time frame allocated to the study does not enhance wider coverage as the researcher has to combine other academic activities and examinations with the study.      

(c)Finance: The finance available for the research work does not allow for wider coverage as resources are very limited as the researcher has other academic bills to cover

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Computer: A computer is a machine or an apparatus that manipulate data according to a list of instructions, whose end product (output) may be expressible in numerical or logical terms.
Teaching: Teaching could be defined as the process of transferring knowledge or the activities of educating or instructing with the aim of impacting knowledge or skill from a generation to another.
Problem: A problem could be defined in this context as a question proposed from academic discussion or scholastic disputation or a continued or imagined situation in which the task is to produce or prove some specified result by the exercise of thought.
Investigation: The action or process of investigating, careful research, or an instance of systematic inquiry or careful study of a particular subject.

Organization of the study

This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), statement of problem, objectives of the study, research question, significance or the study, research methodology, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two highlight the theoretical framework on which the study its based, thus the review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.  Chapter five gives summary, conclusion and also recommendations made of the study.

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