FACTORS MILITATING AGAINST EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF HISTORY AMONG JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

History is an important subject which conveys invaluable lessons from the past whose worth transcends regional, national and cultural boundaries; therefore such a subject needs to be taught well in schools in order to make learners gain appreciation of its relevance. However government is yet to take the teaching and learning of History very serious in junior secondary schools as proposed through its policy to bring back the glory of the subject as observed by the researcher hence the ban and re-introduction of the subject resulting to loss of interest by students who decided to sought refuge in other alternative subjects like Civic Education and Social Studies. This study therefore investigates the challenges militating the teaching and learning of History among junior secondary school students in Enugu state. Three research questions and hypotheses guided the study. The study was conducted using descriptive survey design with a sample size of 20History teachers and 100 students who were chosen using stratified sampling technique. A close ended researcher designed questionnaire was used to obtain responses from the teachers and students respectively. The instrument was face validated by three experts from the department of Education Foundation and History/ International Relation from Enugu state University of Science and Technology and Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka respectively. Internal consistency was determined using Cronbach alpha reliability co-efficient with 0.82 obtained from the pilot study. The research question was answered using mean and standard deviation while the differences between the response of teachers and students were analyzed using T-test. Based on the findings, it was recommended that government should develop the political will to enforce the compulsory study of history in junior secondary schools as one of the core subjects so that adequate knowledge of Nigerian’s past will help enhance and foster patriotism among the students because just like George Santayana said” Those who cannot remember their past are condemned to repeat it”; History will help students learn from the past in order to correct the future.