Music Teacher Education in The 21st Century - Challenges and Prospects
Music Teacher Education in The 21st Century - Challenges and Prospects
Music Teacher Education in The 21st Century - Challenges and Prospects
By
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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
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,
1. The ability to arouse and maintain students interest in the course (learning);
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8. He has high explanatory power i.e. he is able to make theoretical explanations more
practical.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
in Ghana and sub-Sahara Africa in the 1960s as problematic for the music teachers. He says;
social life, there is the danger that musical activities in the classroom – an
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
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
Times are changing and society likes it or not must change along. Nonetheless, change
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
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
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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