School Administrators' Instructional Supervision, Psychosocial Assistance, and Professional Support as Determinants of Teacher Job Performance in Elementary Schools

Previous studies have assessed the relative effect of instructional supervision, psycho-social and professional support on teacher's job performance in secondary or higher education. Little or nothing is yet to be known about the effect of these variables on teacher’s job performance at the primary education level. This study is the first to show the relative and cumulative effect of instructional supervision, psycho-social and professional support on teacher's job performance in primary education. An ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study, with a sample of 965 teachers selected through the proportionate stratified sampling technique. Two instruments – the “Improvement Strategies Questionnaire (ISQ)” and the Teachers’ Effectiveness Scale (TES) were used for data collection. Findings showed a significant effect of all the independent variables partially and jointly on the job performance of primary education teachers. Based on this conclusion, policy implications are discussed, while it is recommended amongst others, that headteachers in primary school should ensure that they visit classrooms regularly to monitor the teaching activities of teachers. This would enable them (headteachers) to identify teachers with sound, average or weak pedagogical skills for service delivery; professional counsellors should be recruited and deployed to all primary schools to cater for the psychological and social needs of teachers and pupils; regular retraining programmes on the ethics of teaching should be organised for teachers from time to time to enable primary education teachers to acquire skills in line with the changing society. results to determine which of the independent variable has a significant effect on the dependent variable (teachers’ job performance). Based on the results presented, it was discovered that instructional supervision has a significant effect on teachers’ job performance {F (1, 963) = 13.203, p = .000 < .05}. Also, psycho-social support is also shown to have a significant effect on teachers’ job performance {F (1, 963) = 7.767, p = .005 < .05}. The results also indicate that professional support has a significant effect on the teachers’ job performance {F (1, 963) = 6.591, p = .010 < .05}. Considering the significance of the results across the various independent variables, the null hypothesis was rejected, while the alternate hypothesis is upheld. Therefore, it is concluded that there are significant relative effects of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers’ job performance.


Introduction
It is generally believed that, the backbone of the educational sector are teachers (Fehintola, 2014;Khan and Abdullah, 2019); thus, the extent of their service delivery is of immense relevance to students and society. The job performance of teachers has numerous implications that are far-reaching (Toropova et al., 2020). They influence and direct the extent to which inputs within a school are processed, refined or transformed for educational goals to be realised (Eze, 2016;Fehintola, 2014;Sule et al., 2015;Uko et al., 2015). As an author simply puts, teachers are the keys to educational development and are very essential for the implementation of educational operations (Teo et al., 1996). Due to the dynamic role teachers play in education generally, and primary education, in particular, the rate at which they perform their duties is of immense importance to parents, school leaders, other stakeholders and society (Arop et al., 2019a;Owan and Agunwa, 2019).
The performance of a teacher can be ascertained using the rate at which institutional goals are attained, the quality and academic performance of students in the short-or long-run (Bassey et al., 2019;Benebo-Solomon, 2015;Fehintola, 2014;Owan, 2018a). It has also been posited that effective teachers command better performance in learners (Bassey et al., 2019;Robert and Owan, 2019). This implies that different teachers, with varying characteristics, impact differently on the learners. Teachers' characteristics (attitude towards teaching and teaching process, sense of responsibility, demography in terms of gender and qualification and so on) reflects on learners' academic performance (Chamundeswari, 2013;Fehintola, 2014). It follows, from the above, that teachers should be reinforced and closely monitored for increased productivity. This could be achieved through supervision, retraining, remuneration, mentorship, rewards, recognition, supporting their personal development, providing them with cutting-edge and state-of-the-art teaching aids and instructional materials.
Teacher's job performance may be defined as the deliberate efforts and energy teachers commit towards the allround development of learners entrusted to them; as well as the attainment of predetermined goals of the schools or education. It is the statutory performance of the curriculum to enhance learners' achievement of educational set goals in schools (Arop et al., 2018). It is also the total commitment of teachers towards discharging their duties at school directed towards achieving educational goals (Ezeugbor et al., 2018). Furthermore, it is the commitment of teachers to pedagogical delivery and display of excellence in the teaching profession (Uko et al., 2015). For teachers to reach success and perform optimally, they are expected to be examples and models to learners, since that are foster parents (Ekpe, 2018;Owan and Ekpe, 2019).
Notwithstanding the important role teachers are expected to play and the place they occupy in society, what has continued to agitate the minds of researchers, the government at all levels and other concerned citizens, is the rate at which teachers are discharging their duties. The issue of teachers' job performance has attracted a lot of interest in recent times and there is a growing body of knowledge revealing that the state of teachers performance in most areas is below expectations (e.g., (Arop et al., 2019a;Benebo-Solomon, 2015;Ekpe, 2018;Owan, 2018a;Owan and Ekpe, 2019;Uko et al., 2015). Some studies document that teachers display high levels of ineffectiveness in the performance of their job through poor record keeping, punctuality to school, note writing, unethical marking of attendance register, handling of students welfare and teaching of learners (Arop et al., 2019b;Ekpe, 2018;Isaac et al., 2010;Owan and Ekpe, 2019;Sule et al., 2015), as well as, the use of obsolete teaching methods (Owan, 2018a). Such negative attitudes, as reported, may lead to poor students' academic performance and school goal attainment.
In time past, many teachers complain of the poor condition of services which led to several industrial actions such as protest, strikes or both (Owan, 2018a). Other teachers also complained about the inconsistent and untimely payment of salaries as compelling reasons for their perceived ineffectiveness (Arop et al., 2019b;Owan, 2018a;Sule et al., 2015). Different workshops and seminars were also organised by the government to adjust teachers to modern trends in teaching (Olawole, 2009). The academic qualification for teaching was also raised to a minimum of Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) at the primary education level (Benebo-Solomon, 2015), as other attempts made to improve the quality of teachers and teaching. In recent times, teachers tend to be receiving their salaries on time (Owan, 2018a); the Teachers' Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) have also intensified efforts in scrutinizing the national teaching workforce and eliminating non-professionals in the system. The TRCN has also formulated a policy for the employment of only teachers who are duly registered and certified by the council. All these measures were anticipated to boost the teaching efficacy of primary education teachers and beyond, however, it seems the problem still persist, as many teachers are still seen portraying the negative characteristics described by scholars above. It was on this grounds that the researcher's curiosity was raised towards assessing the relative effects of instructional supervision, psycho-social and professional support on teacher's job performance in primary education.

Instructional Supervision and Teachers Job Performance
Instructional supervision provides up-to-date information, skills and knowledge to supervisees, and also paves way for easy adaptation to innovative ways of instructional delivery (Nnebedum and Akinfolarin, 2017). Supervision is the basis for goal attainment, maintenance of standard, quality of teaching and learning (Mohammed, 2016). Performance results and acceptable standards by school administrators is obtained through instruction supervision Mohammed (2016). Thus, Instructional supervision is a formative process involving classroom visitation, note writing, content delivery, geared towards improving teaching-learning outcomes. The aim of instructional delivery is to enable teachers improve and implement teaching-learning strategies, for better academic achievement (Akinfolarin and Rufai, 2017;Nakpodia, 2006;Sule M., 2013).
Others studies revealed that many teachers support the view of being supervised during service delivery (Mbatia, 2016;Nakitare, 2000). Contrastingly, a study revealed that teachers display negative attitude towards supervision (Simbano, 2015); as teachers neither benefit from an external or internal supervision (Watene, 2007). Similarly, another study showed that some teachers are not comfortable with supervision because they possess same qualifications as their supervisors (Sarfo and Cudjoe, 2016). It seems therefore, that the issue of qualification and effective supervision of schools should be further explored because another study (Makokha, 2015) has also shown that instructional supervision is influenced by academic qualification, experience and school size. This implies that many teachers are not happy when they are being supervised as they discharge duties by supervisors of equal academic standing or rank. Another study explained supervisors'-teachers crisis also stems from conflicting role expectations, resulting in mistrust and stress for teachers and supervisors (Mofareh, 2011).

Psycho-Social Support and Teachers Job Performance
Psycho-social support can be offered using psychological and social factors to boost the reaction, receptions and working conditions of employees (Owan, 2018b). These include the way work is conducted (such as workload, deadlines, work techniques) and the circumstances which work occurs (including connections and interactions) with administrators, supervisors, clients or customers, work fellows and co-workers (Odebode, 2018). An investigation revealed that formal and informal monitoring acts as a determinant of psychosocial support (Amman et al., 2009). A study observed a small decrease in the relationship between psychosocial safety climate and job performance (Havermans et al., 2017).
Another study showed that there is no significant correlation between psychosocial support and job satisfaction of student counsellors (Okopi and Ofole, 2014). Other studies have showed a significance effect between psychosocial factor and job performance (Benebo-Solomon, 2015;Čecho et al., 2019;Gàlvez et al., 2018). Another study revealed that psychosocial support enhances interpersonal aspect of monitoring teachers' competences (Vanderbilt, 2010). Another study indicates that psychosocial factor such as, length of service staff discipline, selfesteem, incentives and religiosity significantly predicts teachers job performance (Ojewumi et al., 2015). However, factors which have a negative effect on the psycho-social state of teachers such as bullying has a negative impact on job performance (Stephen et al., 2019). Similar findings from other studies indicated a negative influence between psychosocial factor on the job performance of female teachers (Odebode, 2018;Sio et al., 2018).

Professional Support and Teacher Job Performance
Professional support can be seen as those platforms provided by management in an organization with the aim of availing employees with requisite skills to enable them meet up with societal trends. Professional support as management practice is aimed at creating an atmosphere conducive for effective discharge of staff duties in a professional manner (Egboka, 2018). Those planned activities designed to provide members of an organization avenues to learn skills in order to meet with up with current future demand are termed professional development (Werner and Desimone, 2012). This support includes training, professional competencies; motivation and supervision (Akinfolarin and Emetarom, 2017), and staff welfare (Egboka, 2018). Teachers requires professional support that is objective and also has element of constructive criticism, to enable them function effectively (Lindgren, 2003).
A study showed a significant influence between professional support and job performance (Benebo-Solomon, 2015). Similar studies indicated a significance between staff training and job performance (Alfaki, 2014;Appiah, 2010). These studies did not explain the extent to which professional support influences job performance. However, some studies document that school-based mentoring provides basis for staff job performance (Mudzielwan and Maphosa, 2014;Okurame, 2008). Teachers gain new knowledge when professional development is offered (Loizou, 2008). It has been discovered that one of the problems facing teachers job performance is the poor development practices offered to them by principals (Egboka, 2018;Nwite, 2016). Similar studies revealed that poor performance of teachers is linked to non-frequency of in-service training (Eze, 2016;Hervie and Winful, 2018;Khan and Abdullah, 2019).

The Present Study
Although, it seems to be known that effectively supervised schools perform better in academic activities than poorly supervised schools (Masao, 2017). However, there seems to be no universal consensus on the effect supervision has on primary education teachers as earlier studies have dwelt more on secondary education; the contrasting results of some studies (e.g., (Sarfo and Cudjoe, 2016;Simbano, 2015)); also presents a challenge for further investigations. The effect of instructional supervision on teachers' performance is still debatable, justifying the second major reasons why this variable was considered.
Existing literature on psycho-social support and teachers performance revealed that majority of the studies provided evidence from foreign contexts, with a paucity of research literature from Africa generally and Nigeria particularly. Most studies also tend to have associated psycho-social support to the performance of students, with only a handful of studies linking it to teachers. The present study was therefore, undertaken to shift the focus from students to teachers and create more awareness based on results from empirical analysis. This is important, teachers should also be given attention because their emotional state could play a role in the performance duties and the outcomes of the learners. It is in this regards that this variable (psycho-social support) was considered to contribute to already known knowledge in the scientific literature.
It was observed that the variable (professional support) has gained vast attention in the literature, in relation to teachers' job performance. Some researchers tend to have used other independent variables (e.g. training, retraining, mentoring, development etc.) to mean similar or the same thing as professional support (Alfaki, 2014;Appiah, 2010;Mudzielwan and Maphosa, 2014;Okurame, 2008). Authors have also attempted to explain the importance of professional support, with only few studies showing the extent to which it affects teachers' performance. To the researcher's knowledge, this study is the first to evaluate the relative and composite effects of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance in primary schools.

Research Questions
1. What are the relative contributions of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support to teachers' job performance? 2. What is the cumulative contribution of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance?

Hypotheses
1. There are no significant relative effects of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance. 2. There is no significant cumulative effect of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance.

Population and Sample
This study adopted the descriptive ex-post facto design, where the instructional supervision practices, psychological and professional support, as well as teachers' job performance would be studied based on past records or observations. This study targeted a population of 7338 primary school teachers and 38,655 primary school pupils, spread across 898 public primary schools in Rivers State (Data were obtained from the Rivers State Education Board, 2019). All the Primary schools in Rivers state were stratified into the three education zones (such as Rivers West, with a population of 2,003 teachers in 312 public primary schools; Rivers East, with a population of 3,128 teachers in 320 schools; Rivers South-East, with a population of 2,207 teachers in 266 schools).
The proportionate stratified random procedure was adopted in selecting 15% of all the teachers in each public primary school across each local government area within each of the three education zones in Rivers State were computed. This resulted in the selection of a sample of 1,100 public primary school teachers as sample for the study. The sample of the study distributed as follows -Rivers West = 300 teachers, Rivers East = 469 teachers, and Rivers South-East = 331 teachers. This sample represents 15% of teachers in each education zone and of the entire population of teachers.

Measures and Instruments
The first measure is instructional supervision which has been operationally defined as a well-planned and systematic process of assessing teachers' actual teaching in the classroom by either the school leader (head teacher) or external examiner. The second measure is psycho-social support which is defined operationally as the activities aimed at improving the emotional state of teachers for effective service delivery. The third measure of this study is professional support, which in this study, refers to the opportunities provided for teachers to improve their professional skills to enable them adjust to the dynamic society. The fourth and last measure of this study is teachers' job performance, defined as the degree to which teachers discharge their core or primary duties in line with prescribed patterns expected. Two instruments were used in obtaining data for this study -"Improvement Strategies Questionnaire (ISQ)" designed and validated by Benebo-Solomon (2015) and Teachers' Effectiveness Scale (TES) designed and validated by Bassey et al. (2019).
The ISQ was structured into two sections A and B. Section A was designed to obtain respondents (teachers) demographic variables; while section B of the original ISQ comprised 30 four-points Likert Scale items (Benebo-Solomon, 2015). The response set range from Strongly Agree (4 points) to Strongly Disagree (1 point) with negative item reverse-coded. The 30 items were grouped into five clusters measuring variables such as professional support, psycho-social support, workshop attendance, instructional supervision and school supervision (Benebo-Solomon, 2015). However, in this study, 18 of these items (those measuring professional support, psycho-social support and instructional supervision) were adopted for this study. Modifications were made to some items in the instrument, ensuring that each section has three positive-and three negative-worded items. The modified instrument was therefore, used to measure the three independent variables (professional support, psycho-social support and instructional supervision) of this study. The instrument was validated (See (Benebo-Solomon, 2015)), with Cronbach reliability coefficients ranging from .71 to .88 for all the sub-scales. These reliability values are high enough to justify its use as an internally consistent instrument.
The Teachers' Effectiveness Scales (TES) was developed to measure the extent to which teachers are effective in discharging their duties in schools (Bassey et al., 2019). The instrument is composed of 15 items arranged on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from Highly ineffective to Highly effective. In the original version of the TES, the authors developed items in the form of a checklist for secondary school students to rate their teachers job performance. The instrument was modified in the present study by converting the checklist into statementsfor primary school teachers to rate their own performance. Although there could be biased responses through overrating, teachers were allowed to rate themselves to obtain data that would be correlated to their perception of instructional supervision, professional and psychological support. The face, content and construct of the instrument were established previously (see (Bassey et al., 2019)) with a Cronbach reliability coefficient of .982. however, due to the modification made, the instrument was subjected to a trial test using 40 primary school pupils who are not part of the sample. These respondents were given copies of the TES to respond to, upon completion, the collected data were subjected to reliability analysis using the Cronbach Reliability Technique. Cronbach reliability estimate of .896 was obtained suggesting that the instrument is internally consistent.

Data Collection and Analysis Procedures
Before copies of the instruments were administered, due approval was obtained from the various head teachers in all the public primary schools by the researcher. Having been granted approval, the questionnaire was administered by the researcher and research assistants. Due to the vast nature of the area of study, the researcher sought the help of 10 research assistants to assist in data collection. The research assistants were directed to personally administer copies of the instruments to the respondents. The researcher started the exercise in Rivers East Educational Zone which had the highest number of schools and teachers before proceeding to other education zones, using a period of three weeks. The team ensured that copies of the administered instruments were filed correctly and retrieved for analysis. Out of 1,100 copies of both instruments administered to teachers, only 965 were properly completed without errors (88%). The incomplete or erroneously completed copies of the instruments were discarded. Simple linear and multiple linear regression analysis were performed to answer the research questions and test the null hypotheses.

Demographic Characteristics of Respondents
The demographic analysis of indicates that the respondents are 43.8% males (n =423) and 56.2% females (n = 542). The age distribution shows that 5% of the respondents (n = 48) are less than 20 years old; 21.7% (n = 209) are between 20 and 24 years; 39.2% (n = 378) are age between 25 and 29 years; while 34.2% (n = 330) are 30 years or above. The results of respondents' experience show thar 19.7% (n = 190) of the respondents have less than three years work experience; 20.8% (n = 201) have work experience ranging from three to five years; 18.7% (n = 180) are experienced by six to eight years; 19.4% (n = 187) have gained between nine to eleven years work experience; 21.5% (n = 207) of the respondents have 12 years work experience or above. The results of respondents' marital status showed that 30.7% (n = 296) of the respondents are single; 37% (n = 357) are married; while 32.3% (n = 312) possess other marital status.

Research Question One
What are the relative contributions of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support to teachers' job performance? The results of the analysis indicated that instructional supervision accounted for 1.4% to the total variance in teachers' job performance (R = .116; R 2 = .014; SE = 17.57). Psycho-social support accounted for 0.8% of the variance in teachers job performance (R = .089; R 2 = .008; SE = 17.62). While professional support could be held accountable for 0.7% of the total variance in teachers' job performance (R = .082; R 2 = .007; SE = 17.63). These results indicate that the remaining 98.6%, 99.2%, and 99.3% is unexplained by instructional supervision, psychological and professional support respectively, but by other variables not included in the regression models.

Research Question Two
What is the cumulative contribution of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance? The results of the multiple regression analysis showed that instructional supervision, psycho-social and professional support jointly accounted for 2.6% of the total variance in teachers' job performance (R = .160; R 2 = .026; SE = 17.47). By implication, the remaining 97.4% of the total variance in teachers' job performance could be explained by other independent variables not studied in this research.

Hypothesis one
There are no significant relative effects of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance. This hypothesis is tested using the results presented in Table 1. The results in Table 1 presents the analysis of variance of the regression results to determine which of the independent variable has a significant effect on the dependent variable (teachers' job performance). Based on the results presented, it was discovered that instructional supervision has a significant effect on teachers' job performance {F (1, 963) = 13.203, p = .000 < .05}. Also, psycho-social support is also shown to have a significant effect on teachers' job performance {F (1, 963) = 7.767, p = .005 < .05}. The results also indicate that professional support has a significant effect on the teachers' job performance {F (1, 963) = 6.591, p = .010 < .05}. Considering the significance of the results across the various independent variables, the null hypothesis was rejected, while the alternate hypothesis is upheld. Therefore, it is concluded that there are significant relative effects of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance.

Hypothesis Two
There is no significant cumulative effect of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance. The results of the multiple regression analysis presented in Table 2 is used to test this null hypothesis at the .05 level of significance. The result in Table 2 shows the ANOVA results of the multiple regression analysis of the cumulative effect of the three independent variables (instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support) on the dependent variable (teachers' job performance). Based on the result, it was discovered that there is a significant cumulative effect of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support on teachers' job performance {F (3, 961) = 8.435, p = .000 < .05}. Consequently, the null hypothesis, earlier formulated, is discarded while the alternate hypothesis is upheld. Although the relative contribution of the respective independent variables has been assessed earlier, the results in Table 2 further confirms the results that instructional supervision, psycho-social and professional support has significant effects respectively, on teachers' job performance. Furthermore, it is shown in Table 2 that out of three independent variables, instructional supervision is the strongest predictor (t = 3.471, β = .111, p = .001 < .05), followed by psycho-social support (t = 2.427, β = .078, p = .015 < .05) and then professional support (t = 2.209, β = .071, p = .027 < .05).

Discussion of Findings
This study uncovered that instructional supervision, psycho-social support and professional support are crucial individual factors that affect the rate at which teachers' discharge their duties in schools. This implies that higher rates of positive instructional supervision, psycho-social and professional support will lead to positive and higher rate of teachers' job performance. This finding confirms the results of many previous studies on the separate independent variables of this study. For instance, many studies in the past have also indicated that instructional or teachers' supervision lead to improved work performance (e.g., (Chepkuto et al., 2018;Dikeogu and Eric, 2019;Ekpoh and Eze, 2015;Emmanuel et al., 2019). This finding may be attributed to the up-to-date information, skills and knowledge that supervisors provide to teachers (supervisees) which paves way for easy adaptation to innovative ways of instructional delivery (Nnebedum and Akinfolarin, 2017).
In terms of psycho-social support, the finding of this study corroborates previous results (e.g., (Benebo-Solomon, 2015;Čecho et al., 2019;Gàlvez et al., 2018;Okopi and Ofole, 2014) revealing that a significant effect of psycho-social support on teachers' job satisfaction exist. This finding is attributed to the emotional boost that psycho-social support brings to teachers which, may affect their mood and overall attitude to work. This is because factors such as bullying affects teachers' psycho-social state negatively resulting in poor job performance (Stephen et al., 2019). Furthermore, another finding of this study on professional support revealed significant results on teachers' job performance which is similar to the results obtained by Benebo-Solomon (2015). This finding is attributed to the new knowledge and skills teachers gain through the professional development offered to them (Loizou, 2008).
In terms of the cumulative effect, this study uncovered that the provision of instructional supervision, psychosocial and professional support to teachers boost their performance more than the use of any one of these variables. This implies that schools where all these services are simultaneously rendered will raise teachers job performance far above those that offer only one of these services. This result is novel, as no study in the literature have attempted to examine the joint effect of these variables. Thus, further researches are still necessary in this area to provide more evidences that could be used to validate this finding. This finding, is however, attributed to the diverse but complementary roles that these variables play in the life of teachers. If relatively, these variables are significant predictors, then providing the three would do even much better job in enhancing performance.

Limitations
It is generally impossible for any research to be able to answer all the questions surrounding it. This study explored the extent to which three factors (instructional supervision, psycho-social support, professional support) affect the job performance levels of primary school teachers. The study's finding was based on data obtained from primary school teachers through a self-rating questionnaire. This study is therefore, limited by the fact that respondents may have over-or under-rated themselves. Furthermore, although the sample size is representative of the population, the study was based in Cross River State, Nigeria, with a different cultural context. This may limit the rate at which generalizations can be made to the population of other cultural contexts.

Conclusion
This study assessed the relative and cumulative effect of instructional supervision, psycho-social and professional support on teachers' job performance in primary education. The study confirmed significant effects of all the independent variables partially and jointly on the performance of primary education teachers. This study has great implications on the future conduct of instructional supervision in primary schools. The study will also help policy makers in the future to identify ways in which teachers with low work morale can be assisted through psychosupport to maintain a healthy mood and a favourable attitude to work. The study has also shown that the provision of professional support for teachers' development would improve their future work performance in schools. Based on these conclusions reached, the following recommendations were made: i. Head teachers in primary school should ensure that they visit classrooms regularly to monitor the teaching activities of teachers. This would enable them (head teachers) identify teachers with sound, average or weak pedagogical skills for service delivery. Consequently, those with sound or average skills should be encouraged (motivated) through praises or rewards, while those with weak instructional skills should be properly guided to improve their skills for quality service delivery. ii. Professional counsellors should be recruited and deployed to all primary schools to cater for the psychological and social needs of teachers and pupils. These professionals should not engage in teaching but should be given an office where they can be consulted from time to time. iii. Regular retraining programmes on the ethics of teaching should be organised for teachers from time to time to enable primary education teachers acquire skills in line with the changing society. Such retraining opportunities should be adequately funded by the three tiers of government -Local, State and Federal Government.