Assessment of Initial Teacher Preparation: A Tracer Study of Serving NCE Graduates of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto State, Nigeria

The study assessed how adequately prepared serving Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto (SSCOE), Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) graduates were by their Initial Teacher Preparation (ITP) to teach at Basic Education level. It was Mixed method that involved Descriptive Survey and Case Study research design and the population of the study are all the 7, 246 NCE graduates teaching in primary schools across the 23 LGEAs in Sokoto state represented in the multi-stage sampling procedure by 357 serving SSCOE Sokoto NCE graduates as recommended by Research Advisor (2006). Triangulation was used in data collection; the instruments were two Researcher-designed questionnaires for the teachers and Head-teachers of primary schools they teach, Researcher-designed Classroom Observation Checklist for teachers and In-depth Interview guide. All the instruments were validated by team of experts and supervisors from the Department of Educational Foundations, Usmanu Danfodiyo, University, Sokoto. While reliability index (.61, .68 and .63) of Questionnaires and Checklist were obtained through Test-re-test method using Spearman Rank Order Correlation. For the Qualitative interview, a technique of repeating question in a slightly different form during the interview was used. Data was analysed using frequency and mean score as well as thematic analysis. Among the findings of the study were serving SSCOE Sokoto NCE graduates perceived themselves inadequately prepared by their ITP in some pedagogical areas namely Classroom management, application of instructional materials and management of school records and thus one of the recommendations was that Colleges of Education, SSCOE in particular should give extensive ITP to the NCE pre-service teachers on pedagogical aspects of training especially those considered inadequate by the College’s serving graduates.