ASSESSING THE AVAILABILITY AND UTILIZATION OF LOCAL RESOURCE IN TEACHING AND LEARNING OF BIOLOGY IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NNEWI EDUCATION ZONE

This study focused on the availability and utilization of local resources in the teaching and learning of Biology in public senior secondary schools in Nnewi education zone. The research design adopted for the study was a descriptive survey research design. The total population of the study is one thousand, six hundred and five (1605) comprising of one thousand five hundred and sixty-six (1566) Biology students and thirty-nine (39) Biology teachers of secondary schools in Nnewi education zone. Simple random sampling techniques were used to select 8 schools giving a sample size of 208. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire. The instrument was validated by three lecturers, one from the school of education and two from school of science, Fcet, Umunze. The questionnaire was used to generate data for the study and it contains 24 items. Four research questions were formulated for the study and were answered using mean and standard deviation. The findings of this study revealed that there are available local resources for use in teaching and learning of Biology in public senior secondary schools in Nnewi Education Zone. The available local resources were properly used in teaching and learning of Biology, the problems Biology teachers encountered in utilization of local resources in teaching and learning of Biology are lack of knowledge as inability to use the local resources to teach Biology, inability to identify the usefulness of local resources available for use in their environment. However, the various ways to improve the problems Biology teachers encountered in utilization of local resources in teaching and learning of Biology in Nnewi Education Zone include, training on the use of local resources in teaching and learning of Biology for the teachers, allocation of funds to school management to enable teachers to source for local resources in Biology teaching and learning, allocation of more time to Biology classes to enable teacher use local resources. Based on the findings, the researcher recommends that the government should provide locally available biological resources in schools to enable teachers to use them in their instructions.