IMPROVING TEACHER'S QUALITY THROUGH RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

IMPROVING TEACHER'S QUALITY THROUGH RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

Theme: Outstanding Practice and Performance in Enhancing the Effectiveness of

Teacher.

 Name of Project:              Improving Teacher Quality through Educational Research Publications

 Purpose of the Project:  To draw the attention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the organizers of UNESCO — Hamdan Prize for the effectiveness of teachers to the positive effect of publishing Educational Researches for an improved Teachers’ Quality.

 Background: A teacher has the sole role and ability to mould students in the most effective and efficient ways to bring out the best in the student. This can only be possible if the teacher is professionally qualified to guide, teach and mentor the student using the most current methodology in educational research journals. This will in turn enhance students’ performance academically, morally and socially.

 Statement of the Problem: - Many students do not perform well academically at the end of the year examinations. Hence, students’ poor performance and output after graduation have been blamed on students’ attitude to reading and partly on the quality of teachers in schools. Teachers’ quality in effect, is negatively affected by lack of publication of researches carried out to improve on teachers’ quality and students’ academic performance.

Strategies:-  Publication of annual journal of Educational Research is one of the outstanding practice and performance that will enhance  the effectiveness of teachers thereby improving teacher quality and students performance.

The need to have an annual journal of education published by Education Research Institutes world over cannot be over emphasized. In Nigeria, the researcher, as a staff of Planning Research and Statistics (PRS) Divisions of Education Resource Centre Wuse,  Abuja, has taken up this mandate to carry out this laudable project on improving teachers’ quality for sustainable global Education sector transformation.

With the aid of education researches carried out by the Planning, Research and Statistics Division on topics such as:

      Ø  Performance of students in FCT Public Schools

      Ø Survey of the level of Reading Culture in FCT Schools

      Ø ICT illiteracy among teachers

      Ø Effect of miracle centers on students’ performance, the researcher would be able to discern the source of the problem.

From these researches, it was observed that teachers need more training in their

profession to improve on their teaching skills.

Thus, the Teachers Development Division (TDD) of the same Agency is mandated to retrain teachers in order to improve on their quality. In response to this mandate, the teacher’s development Division (TDD) came out with a programme known as Professional Learning Community (PLC). All these researches and programmes are valueless and of selfish motive if they are not published in educational journal for global consumption and for improved teacher quality.

 Conceptualization and Design: The use of educational research journal to improve teachers’ quality will be very effective. The outcome will boil down to publication of many researches carried out on a wide range of topics on enhancing the effectiveness of teachers for wider audience consumption. In order to prompt scholars to:

- Carry out more researchers for improved teacher quality and better       student performance.

- Publish new innovations for improving teacher quality

- Make maximum use of publication and printing units of educational    research centers, the researcher has been mandated to carry out this project of improving teacher’s quality through publication of educational researches for sustainable global transformation.

This noble but capital intensive project will not only expose the usefulness of publishing educational research on improving teacher quality but will also encourage contributions from all over the world to publish articles for sustainable human transformation.

Feasibility study for the production of such educational research journal is very necessary. This is in order to avoid unfortunate consequences such as lack of

- Fund

- Sustainability of publication

- Appropriate logistics

- Marketing

- And acceptability by the public

ln addition, the feasibility study would be very informative in helping to guide the planning of a full scale publication of this journal.

 NAME: The journal shall be named “Teachers Journal of Education Research”.

 NATURE: It shall be an International Education Research Journal. It shall be an Open Accessed research-based journal. This journal aims at harnessing the core value of research in improving teacher quality as well as the core value of scholarly communication of sharing knowledge for further growth of education sector globally without price and copyright restrictions. It is not a subscription- based journal that attracts financial limitations for researchers to gain access to information. It is not profit oriented. It is informative and educative. This journal emanates from the need to publish current increased specialization and diversification of various academic researches for global sustainable transformation and human resource development.

 THE MARKET: For more and faster accessibility, the educational researches published in this journal would be made available globally through internet and World Wide Web. A website would be opened for the journal with online submission and peer review systems. Official ECT Education Resource (FCT ERC) website can be used. It would be an Open Access Journal (OAJ) and would be free in monetary terms for authors and readers of the online version. It would also have a printed version for local users and for those who are not ICT literate. The

print version of the same work is priced. A sales manager would be in charge of all the sales of the print journal for proper accountability.

 SIZE: The print version would be of A4 Size of 100 - 400 pages with glossy front and back pages. Educational Articles submitted would comply with the following requirements.

- Word count                       Not exceeding 5,000 words

- Line spacing                       Double

- Font size                             12

- Font                                     Times new roman

- Margins                              Not less than 1CM

- Mode of submission       Soft copies

- Citation style                     APA Format

 PRODUCTION COST: For the print version, estimated cost of printing 500 copies of 120 — 140 pages of A4 size with glossy hard cover is N265, 000. For open Access Version, the official FCT ERC website can be used.

PRODUCTION PROCESS: For the educational research journal, this technical stage needs the expertise of someone who is versed in printing press. Fortunately, the printing and publication unit of FCT Education Resource centre, my employer is not lacking in this area. Open Access would be used for wide distribution of scholarly articles without price or copyright restrictions to end users. Educationist, researchers and scholars can freely view, download, copy and print education innovation articles, books conference proceedings contained in this Teachers Journal of Education Research online.

FUNDING STRATEGIES: The Journal would be financed through:

- Research Grant

- International Education Donor Agency e.g. UNESCO, World Bank

- Grant to open Access publishers

- Local Education Donor Agency e.g. ETF

- Direct Author Fees

- Institutional Membership Authors fees

- Institutional Subsidies

- Education Research Fund Raising

 IMPACT AND ACHIEVEMENT:- Readers, contributors and educationist’s have to be assured that the production of Teachers Education Research Journal is a sustainable, valid and laudable venture. This would boost their confidence and morale to be partakers in patronizing and contributing articles for the journal. Being an Open Access Journal (OAJ), materials would be easily available globally at no cost to researchers, educationists and scholars.

 SOCIAL SECTION OF TEACHERS’ EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL PUBLICATION:- The most important thing in education research journal production is to get the social aspect rather than the technical aspects sorted out. This social aspect involves mainly the management team and comprises of:

- Editorial board

- Peer reviewers

- Copyeditors; and

- Proof readers

EDITORIAL BOARD: It is very crucial to have editorial board members ¡n an academic research journal such as this. These are respected, academically sound and experienced individuals who are willing to sit on the board, even ¡f they are only lending their names. Professors from various disciplines would be involved in this academic board. The right format would be used to invite men/women of integrity and academic excellence.to be board members, peer reviewers and contributors.

The Editorial Board would be made up of the followings:

-     Director

-     Editor-in -Chief

-     Associate Editors

-     Editorial Secretary .

-     Assistant Editorial Secretary

-     Typesetting and Graphic Manager

-     Treasurer

-     Marketing / Sales Manager

-     Editorial Advisers

PEER REVIEWERS: These are people that are needed as the first articles are being submitted. They are trust worthy people who can understand the challenges associated with journal publication. They have to set a very high standard for this first issue of journal. And •they have to be influential, experienced educationists.

 COPY EDITORIAL AND PROOF READERS: Educational Research journal publication is not a one man venture. Care must be taken to ensure that good dedicated people are involved. These would be people who are sensitive to individual style as well as people who are willing and ready to bring in some sort of synthesis to the style.

 OTHER DECISION/ RECOMMENDATIONS: Teachers’ Educational Research

Journal would consist of:

- Cover page

- Table of Contents

- Abstracts

- List of Senior or Key Editors

- List of Contributors

Open Access policy would be used while maintaining copyright stance. That is, authors are to keep their copyright. Publication mode would be an issue basis as long as it makes sense ¡n an online environment. If not articles would be published as submissions arrive. Timing of submission would be convenient to all. There would be call for papers through posters inviting institutions to write. Posters would be made and sent to institutions in hard and soft copies globally inviting contributors to send their articles. A bank account would be opened for this project and for contributors to pay. A portal would be created on ECT ERC website for journal so that whenever the website is opened ¡t would be seen. Articles would be sent through this website to the editors to edit and then upload for public consumption.

 CONCLUSION: Teaching quality is an instruction that enables a wide range of students to learn, (Vega, 2013, 2015; Darlington Hammond, 2012). It is the strongest school — related factor that can improve students’ learning and achievement. Education is moving towards the goal of implementing research — quality in terms of better skills that will enhance global sustainable transformation. To accomplish this, there is need to select, adapt and evaluated results from the research findings and publish them. Production of educational research journal ¡n general and that of Teachers’ Educational Research Journal in particular is a welcome intervention in the education sector. It is intended to influence or enhance teachers’ quality as well as their teaching methodology and students’ performance through articles written on the issue mentioned above. Teachers’ Educational Research Journal ¡s a research journal which aims at publishing research articles on improving teachers’ quality and skills. Efforts would be made to ensure that the required standards and guidelines are used in the production of a global academic research publication of this nature.

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