DR. O. E. OSAGIOBARE

This study seeks to examine the factors responsible for students' failure in the English language taking Oredo Local Government Area of Edo State as a case study. The blame has continued to be shifted from teachers to parents, government, students and the society regarding who is responsible for students' failure in the English language in secondary schools. It is against this background the study seeks to find out who is responsible, with close attention to the poor formative assessment practice of English lessons by teachers and promotion of students irrespective of their failure in English at a lower level. Four research questions were raised to guide the study, and a survey research design was adopted for the conduct of the study with the use of a questionnaire as the instrument for gathering data to answer the research questions. The use of mean, standard deviation, frequency count and tables were used to present the results for ease of discussion and interpretation. The results show that teachers, government, students and parents contribute to the existence of this problem. The study concluded that the poor formative assessment practice by English teachers and the practice of promotion of students irrespective of their failure in English at a lower level contribute highly to students' failure in their certificate examinations. Finally, appropriate recommendations like regular supervision of teachers' classwork to ensure formative assessment is practised etc were given to solve the present and recurring problem.

Every nation requires sustainable development to cater for its people and growing
economy. Nigeria is not exempted from this trend. The fact is that human resources
form any established sustainable development. This implies that the place of
teachers cannot be over-emphasized in the teaching -learning process. In Nigeria,
it appears that the teaching of art in Junior Secondary schools faces a lot of setbacks
not only in infrastructural facilities, equipment, tools and art materials but also in
the area of under-employment of trained Art teachers in schools. This incident may
have resulted in students’ lack of interest in offering Fine Arts at Senior Secondary
level. Due to the important role that Art plays in general education, it is important
to see that this subject is taught well at Junior Secondary level. To achieve this, both
qualified and adequate number of Art teachers becomes necessary. This study:
“Availability and Adequacy of Art Teachers in Junior Secondary Schools in Oredo
Local Government Area, Edo State” therefore, has specific objectives of assessing
the availability of Art teachers compared to the number of students offering Fine
Arts at the Junior Secondary level; determine what needs to be done to solve the
problem of inadequacy of Art teachers in the area of study, among others. Survey
research design will be employed in this study with two test instruments; Test of
Availability of art teachers questionnaire” to be administered among Art teachers
and “Test to buttress the data collected through art teachers. The data generated
from the study will be analyzed using simple percentages and recommendations
made from emerging results.