Music Teacher Educationin 21st Century: Challenges and Prospects

By

Omotoso, Christopher Olurotimi (08063102904)

xtopheromotoso@gmail.com
Department of Music
Federal Colleges of education, Okene, Kogi State

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Introduction

The issue of teacher education or teacher preparation anywhere in the world is germane

to the quality of education. In the word of Itedjere (1998) quality of education is determined to a

great extent by the quality of teachers and the quality of the teachers depends on the quality of

their preparation. According to Sivakuman and Sarvalingam (2010) education could be described

as one of the basic needs for human development and escape from poverty. From time

immemorial every society depended on education as the instrument per excellence for ensuring

its continuous existence and preservation of its norms and values. Through the agency of

education, the life of the society is systematically transmitted to the young ones. Education is

considered to be the sum total of human experiences. The teacher who facilitates learning in

teaching/learning situations cannot be inadequately prepared if good result is expected from

learning endeavour.

Teachers’ preparation aims at equipping the teachers for good performance in the field of

teaching. Peretomode (1992) as cited by Itedjere (ibid) identified the following as the cognitive,

personal and professional qualities of a good teacher:

1. The ability to arouse and maintain students interest in the course (learning);

2. He is able to communicate ideas in clear, lucid, logical and organized manner.

3. He has the ability to help students develop appropriate skills.

4. The teacher’s ability to help students develop their thinking processes.

5. He is able to motivate students towards achievement.

6. The teacher is enthusiastic, flexible, friendly and altruistic.

7. He shows good perception and knowledge of his subject matter.

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 8. He has high explanatory power i.e. he is able to make theoretical explanations more

practical.

9. He shows concern/interest for students as persons but firm in his dealings.

10. He is able to create a conducive learning environment.

11. He gives fair examinations, test activities or assignments.

12. He is fair in his grading

13. He is well balanced emotionally.

14. He is healthy and physically sound.

Above-listed qualities and skills can only be acquired through good teacher preparation. Music

teacher has two professional trainings. He is a teacher and he is also a musician. If a music

teacher would be his worth he cannot be deficient in any of these two areas. The success of

educational process depends largely on the teacher who occupies the level of policy

implementation the focus of this chapter is music teacher preparation.

Gray (2016) reports that dreams survey, being in school are common even among adults.

Every school leaver has the dream to proceed to higher institution with the primary aim of

attaining university education. polytechnics and colleges of education are secondary in their

scale of preference in choice of institution. Many who could not secure admission to the

university, either by their inability to fulfill admission policy or otherwise, usually find

themselves in polytechnics or colleges of education. According to Goux (2014) given that only

best students can get access to the most demanded tracks (university education), some of those

students whose academic results are weak and whose information is incomplete about available

options find themselves obliged to choose among tracks that they never planned to attend.

Among the two remaining alternatives, polytechnics enjoy better patronage of secondary school

leavers sometimes because of the types of courses available there such as mass communication,
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accounting, radio and television broadcasting, etc. which are not available in the Colleges of

Education. More importantly, colleges of education are looked down upon because of the

stigmatization of teaching job in the society. Although, the candidates are not properly informed

of what these institutions stand for, yet most of them are hell-bent in seeking university

admission. This chapter examines and analyze various phenomena resulting from emerging

issues and trends in educational systems generally and as they affect music teachers preparation.

By way of theoretical framework, this work is premised on historical-analytical survey.

Historical data on general education, teacher education, music and music teacher education are

collected and analyzed for the purpose of drawing inference and making useful conclusion. This

is necessary because music teacher education did not begin in Nigeria on its own but followed

the trend of general education history. What began as a singing class during colonial era has

grown to full course of study from primary school to the university level.

Music Teacher Education and Its Challenges

Teacher education refers to professional education of teachers towards attainment of

attitudes, skills and knowledge considered desirable so as to make them efficient and effective in

their work, in accordance with the need of a given society at any point in time. It includes

training and or education occurring before commencement of service (pre-service and during

service (in-service or on-the-job) (Ogunyinka, Okeke and Adedoyin, 2015). In this vain, music

teacher education can be considered a type of education geared towards giving the would-be

teacher of music both musical training and the art of teaching so as to acquire knowledge

considered desirable to make him effective on the job imparting musical knowledge. It must be

noted that music education success depends on the quality of teacher that would deliver music

curriculum content and guide the learners towards the achievement of stated music educational

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objectives. Consequently, all efforts towards improving the standard of education without

considering improving on teacher education will end up in futility.

Historically, many scholars agree that music education is not new in Nigeria asit came

with general education package as delivered by the missionaries (Adesokan, 2002, Okafor, 1992,

Omotoso, 2004, 2007, Olorunsogo, 2014). That is, music teacher education follows the trend of

teacher education in Nigeria. During the missionary era the needed teachers are trained to satisfy

their missionary needs. Bello (1981) submitted that the first set of teachers in Nigeria were

teachers/catechists or teacher/pastors whose major works were directing church services,

preaching the sermon on Sundays and sometimes with added role of a choirmaster. It has

observed that most of these teachers were untrained or semi-trained which means they were ill-

equipped for task of teaching. At this time, the classroom teacher taught all subjects including

music which, at that period, may just be singing.

Itedjere (1998) reported that as the numbers of schools increase due to increase in

students population, the need for training teachers emerged and efforts were made to improve on

this as the missionaries opened training centres in (1926) in Oyo, Iwo, etcfor teachers to enable

them improve on their skills and had by the end of that year nine centres (Itedjere, 1998) By

1950, the numbers of training centres rose and gave birth to a modified new programme and new

certificate called Nigerian Certificate in Education (N.C.E.). In 1974, Federal Government

established some advanced teachers colleges later renamed Federal Colleges of Education

(Itedjere, 1998). Some of these teacher training colleges have music departments in them. Also,

in the gains of music teacher preparation some universities offer music as art and as music

education. With all these, it is very disheartening that music teachers produced till date are not

sufficient as the needs continue to expand. Consequently, many schools (primary and junior

secondary) could not offer music.

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 Although music is a very vital aspect of every ethnic group in Nigeria, it is yet to be

respected as a profession by many individual. This is evident in the attitude of the government,

school administrators, parents as well as students towards music education. Admission into the

departments of music in colleges of education has dropped since the past three years. The reason

is not far-fetched. While government hardly give special intervention fund to music education as

in the case of science and technology some school administrators do not see the need for music

in their school curriculum or rather see it as too expensive a course to run. Larger percentage of

the schools in every state of Nigeria neither have music teacher nor offer music even though the

national policy on education stipulates its inclusion in the school curriculum alongside creative

arts. This has been a problem that may not encourage right thinking individual venture into

music education.

The introduction of Cultural and Creative Arts (CCA) curriculum has sent bad signal to

music teachers. The job of music teachers at various level of education is no more guaranteed as

music is no more on its own in the primary and junior secondary level where foundation for

musical interest would be laid. Olorunsogo (2014) rightly observe,

By the explanatory note given that: “Unlike what it used to be practiced in the past

when there were options between Fine Arts; Arts and Craft, Drama and Music, the

present curriculum collate all these into a single subject which has to be taught as

such (NERDC, 2006:v)”; it is evident that music education as a course offering was

not part of the consideration of the designers of this curriculum (UBE curriculum). It

is no wonder then that music content was extremely insignificant in the content of the

curriculum.

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The question still remains that how many school will be able to fulfill that few aspects of music

in that curriculum when they do not have music teacher or where fine art teacher is expected to

handle all the content of CCA curriculum. Omojola (1994) emphasized the importance of music

when he said, “Music provides one of the important acculturation processes through which

young members of traditional society were educated and initiated to the society.” This is a

pointer that music education is a worthwhile venture for any society. In addition, the modern

trend in global civilization is another pointer that no culture in the same tempo of the world can

still hold on to its ancient way of life. Consequently, society is conscious of how to cope with

changes in this present age so as to face the future. Music contents in the CCA curriculum should

be improved upon in such a way that all the courses will be treated equally.

Issues in Curriculum for Music Teacher

According to Vidal (2012) musical expressions in Nigeria reflect the various

characteristics of the cultures and traditions of its two hundred ethnic and four hundred linguistic

groups, making Nigeria a pluralistic, multilingual and multicultural. Each cultural area in Nigeria

has very robust musical culture which could have been source of material for music education

curriculum. When we think of curriculum the following questions come to mind: what should be

taught (knowledge object)?How to teach what should be taught and how to organize the things to

be taught (methodology)? These questions are answered in the curriculum in the context of the

society’s cultural value system, beliefs, aspiration, and its worldview. Curriculum is usually

financed by the society for which it is prepared. In Nigeria, various governments at various times

have come with educational curriculum which has not satisfactorily met the yearning of Nigerian

populace.

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 Music curriculum inherited from the colonial masters at the independence of Nigeria was

the one that reflected the whites cultural areas. Seeing this, musicologists and music educators

began to agitate for curriculum that will be customized for Nigerian culture. Vidal (2001)

reported a situation where an American professor challenged him to stop teaching other people’s

(European’s) history of music and thereby began to venture into teaching the history of Nigerian

music. The parallel situation was reported in Ghana by Nketia in his first paper where he

described the organization of institutionalized methods of music instruments used in classrooms

in Ghana and sub-Sahara Africa in the 1960s as problematic for the music teachers. He says;

As music is traditionally practical in African community as an integral part of

social life, there is the danger that musical activities in the classroom – an

artificially created musical situation may be unrelated to experience in society.

There is the danger that the teacher might teach music merely as a object of

instruction rather than as something vital, alive and part of experience (Nketia,

1966:231).

This and other experiences made the educational planners introduce studies in African music in

music education curriculum of Nigeria and other African countries. Although, it was a good

beginning, it has become expedient for African countries to formulate music curriculum which

will bring about relevant musical experiences to African children.

It is needful to say that a course in African music is not sufficient for an African child to

be able to grasp adequately with the musical culture of his people. Nketia (ibid) suggested that

for effort reforming curriculum content of music education to be worthwhile, it must be preceded

by a search for a clear definition of aims and objectives so that music education in post colonial

Africa does not continue as a mere extension of missionary or colonial educational aims but

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something based on how 21st century Africans see music education in relations to their society,

remembering that music education can be an instrument of change and a means of fostering and

preserving the music values of a culture. Another Ghanaian music scholar, Akrofi (2002),

advised that Africans in general should encourage the present generation to ensure that their

indigenous music is not suppressed by the music of other cultures within or outside their school

systems. It appears music education suffers the same fate in all over Africa but most especially in

Nigeria.

Conclusion

We have been discussing music teacher education and issues that pertain to it. The issues

of arts education in Nigeria needs to be reconsidered. If CCA has come to stay then there is the

need for a collaborative works between department of fine arts and the department of music at

the colleges of education level which prepares teachers for primary and junior secondary schools.

This collaboration is viewed as a panacea to the challenges of achieving the content of CCA

curriculum which combines cultural and creative arts with music and expected to be taught by a

single teacher in each school. It advocates better attention to teacher preparation since the quality

of education cannot rise above the quality of its teachers.

Times are changing and society likes it or not must change along. Nonetheless, change

should be approached gradually so as to monitor it properly. Instead of frequent changes in

educational system it is advisable to allow a system run for longer period of time to ascertain its

success or failure before change is effected. The success of any country’s educational

programme depends largely on the teachers that sit at the level of implementation of any

beautifully planned educational programme and policy. This makes it very imperative for teacher

education to be taken with all seriousness it deserves. One needs to keep in mind that no

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significant development or transformation could take place without quality education in any

society.

There is need therefore to rethink the curriculum of Cultural and Creative Arts as one

wonders the rationale beside its creation. On the other hand, if the reversal of it is not

considerable then teacher preparation has to be revisited as a matter of urgency so as to

adequately cater for the need at these levels of education. Colleges of education are saddled with

the responsibility to prepare teachers for manpower in primary and junior secondary school. The

minimum standard which is curriculum for this task has provision for CCA as department but

only few colleges have such department. Consequently, collaborative works between fine arts

and music departments that will equip the teachers to be able to fulfill the requirements of CCA

curriculum in primary and junior secondary schools should be considered. This suggested

collaboration must put into consideration the peculiarities of these subjects and should be aware

of the positive and negative effects of all methodologies currently being utilized within their

classroom. This awareness should guide the trainers to structure learning experiences to meet the

needs of all individuals in the 21st century.

Sequel to this, the trainers should train the would-be teacher of CCA variety of

methodologies that could be best employed in each topic as they may belong to different

discipline so as to cater for individual learning preferences and further develop all individuals

within all aspects of their lives. One must put in mind the importance of teachers being able to

utilize the correct methodology at the appropriate time in order to enhance student development,

maintain student discipline and student safety while meeting the needs and requirements of the

curriculum.

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 While we could neither advocate lower standard in admission policy into colleges of

education nor agitate for free teacher education, yet something must be done to encourage more

candidates for teacher education in colleges of education. Encouraging packages like bursary

awards, scholarships from both government and non-governmental organization and various

intervention programmes, regular retraining programmes for the teachers with improved welfare

packages can be impetus for more candidates for music teacher education,.

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