Teachers’ Awareness of and Compliance with Appropriate Strategies in Geography Classrooms in Ibadan

This study assessed teachers’ awareness and compliance to the prescribed teaching strategies in the process of implementing the national geography curriculum. Four research questions were raised for the study. The quantitative survey research design was adopted and data were collected with questionnaires from both teachers and students of geography. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. It was observed that field trip and project strategies which seem to cut across almost all the topics in geography classes were reported as seldom used by both teachers and students whereas the lecture method was marked as very often used by both students and teachers. In addition, 76.8% had three periods per week for teaching and learning geography but 71.2% did not have double period. Furthermore, both teachers and the students said the lack of geography room was a very major problem militating against the implementation of the national geography curriculum. Geography teachers are aware of the prescribed teaching strategies but fail to use them as prescribed because of insufficient instructional time, lack of motivation, fund and too much bureaucracy involved in organizing field trip. Teachers should make use of their immediate local community to better their students’ experiences as geography teaching and learning cannot be restricted to the four-walls of the classroom. School heads should integrate the parents and the community into school programmes as collaborators and equal partners.

Keywords: Geography curriculum implementation, Students’ performance, Teaching strategies