Lecturers’ Perception of the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards for Science Education and Vocational and Technology Education in Universities in Rivers State

Abstract

This study investigated the lecturers’ perception of the new Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard for Science Education, Vocational and Technology Education in two universities in Rivers State. The study participants were 31 lecturers from two programmes in two universities. This comprised 9 lecturers from Rivers State University and 22 from Ignatius Ajuru University of Education. Data were collected using a questionnaire which had both provision for closed andopen-ended responses. It was subjected to face and content validity by three experts and internal consistency reliability test which yielded Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.91. Data were analysed using mean and chi-square. The result showed that lecturers had a positive perception about the usefulness of the curriculum standard. However, there was divergent views about the ease of implementation of the curriculum as well as attitude towards the curriculum between lecturers from the two institutions. Furthermore, a significant association was found between perception on the usefulness of the curriculum and attitude towards the curriculum. On the other hand, there was no significant association between the perception on the ease of implementation and attitude towards the curriculum. Staff development for effective implementation of the new curriculum was recommended among others.