Curriculum Implementation Strategies at the Junior Secondary School: Social Studies Perspectives

Abstract

Development of curricula is one of the major debates in the developing countries with particular reference to Nigeria but the detail of how the curricular will be implemented at school level are often neglected. The paper examines curriculum implementation strategies at the junior secondary school: social studies perspectives. The study is a survey design focused on investigating  curriculum  implementation strategies  at the  junior secondary schoo: social perspectives. The target population for the study comprised of all the junior secondary schools in Ankpa Local Government Area, Kogi State and the sample for the study comprised of 120 junior secondary school teachers. These teachers were drawn using purposive sampling technique from the selected junior secondary schools in Ankpa Local Government Area, Kogi State. The researchers constructed questionnaire titled curriculum implementation strategies at the junior secondary school: social studies perspective (CISJSSSSP) to measure teachers' opinion on curriculum implementation strategies at the junior secondary school. The instrument has 15 items of a four-point scale of strongly agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D) and Strongly disagree (SD). This instrument was validated by experts in the field of social studies, test and measurement. The researchers distributed and collected the copies of the questionnaire with the help of eight research assistants from the junior secondary schools. The data collected were analysed using the weighted mean of 2.5 computed as 4+3+2+ 1 =10/4=2.5. Any mean score that is equal to or above 2.5 is considered significant and therefore, accepted while the one that is less than 2.5 is rejected. The finding show that teachers of social studies are not effective in implementing various curriculum strategies during teaching and learning in junior secondary school, teachers of social studies do not teach appropriate content in the social studies curriculum during classes and Teachers of Social Studies do not employ proper method of teaching social studies and the objectives are not achieved. Based on this, it was recommended that the federal and state ministry of education should encourage the teachers through training and re-training to employ better implementation strategies for social studies curriculum among others.