GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

                                                                                           ABSTRACT

The study impact of teachers’ off-the-job training and in-service training on teacher effectiveness in public secondary schools in Abia State Nigeria adopted a descriptive design with a total population of 3,970 teachers and principals in the selected public secondary schools in Abia State. A sample size of 769 respondents consisting of 746 teachers and 23 principals drawn from 23 public secondary schools were selected through multi stage sampling. The figure 769 represents 20% of the population. The researchers’ self-developed instrument titled ‘’Teachers’ Off-Job-Training, In-Service Training and Teachers’ Effectiveness Questionnaire’’ (TOJTISTTEQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was validity by two experts from the Department of Education Management and one expert from Department of Science Education. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach alpha coefficient which yielded a reliability index of 0.82. The data collected for the study were computed using descriptive statistics such as mean scores and standard deviation to answer the research while t-test was used as a statistical tool to test the stated null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Off-the-job professional development programmes influence teacher effectiveness to high extent. In-service professional development programmes to a high extent has an influence on teacher effectiveness. The researcher thus recommends that to achieve effective school instructions and high academic standard from teachers, government should grant in-service teachers “leave with pay: that will motivate more other teachers with no or low teaching qualifications to enroll. School principals should organize school-based seminars and allow senior colleagues to teach the young ones within the school are in the vanguard of achieving school set-out goals and the general effectiveness in teaching.

KEYWORDS: Teachers’ Off-The-Job Training, In-Service-Training, Teachers’ Effectiveness, Public Secondary Schools, Abia State and Nigeria.