Following the birth of the University of Jos, the Faculty of Education was one of the foundation Faculties of the University when it was founded in 1976, under the deanship of Prof. B. N Obioha. The Faculty started with two departments namely; the Department of Educational Foundation and the Department of Curriculum Studies.
In 1978, two new departments were established – the Department of Special Education and the Department of Rehabilitation Science. In other to bring out the best in the staff and students, the faculty decided to restructure the department therefore causing a change in the names of this department, educational foundation was changed to the Department of Arts and Social Science in 1994/95. In 2009 the department was split into 3; arts education, educational foundation and social science education.
The headship of the new department, educational foundation, started under the administration of Prof. Ibrahim Bulus ( July 2008-2010) up until this present day which is headed by Dr. (Mrs) Theresa S. Gyang (February 2021- till date).
The Department has 4 undergraduate programmes called units; adulthood education, educational management, guidance and counselling, and early childhood education. These units are headed by the unit head. The department has undergone a tangible development in various aspects like the approval of the establishment of primary education studies, approval of masters and PhD programme in adult and continuing education, also the approval of postgraduate diplomas.
In an interview with the Head of Department, Prof. (Mrs) Theresa Gyang explained that the Department focuses on enhancing student’s awareness of the values and contributions of their social environment and providing adequately trained efficient classroom teachers. One of the notable achievements of the department is the successful accreditation exercise in 2023 by the National University Commission (NUC) under the leadership of Vice Chancellor Tanko Ishaya. The department met with the requirements of the NUC and has such is recognised by the school.
Johnson Bassey from the department also made mention of the challenges and he stated that these challenges were more than the development, shortage of manpower in all the units, inadequate supply of stationary, lack of computer accessories, lack of papers for the production of examination results.
The departmental president, Jatau Joy Musa of adult education (400 level) mentioned how challenging the department has been to them – he said there were not enough classrooms and also the case of missing scripts causing the students to have a carryover, and the issues of printing papers. He made mention of donations made to the department which is the generator and this was donated by the undergraduate through to the postgraduate.
Deka Comfort, a 400-level student of the guidance and counselling unit shared her perspective on how challenging it has been trying to fit into the department, compared to when she started she said things were better. But she made note of the fact that there were not enough classrooms to take all of them and that is a major concern to them. Adding to it, she said there have been complaints from her coursemate to the department but they said to write a formal letter to the school. She made mention of something called student personnel services – that is students should be able to solve issues themselves without necessarily involving the school management.
Another student, David Philip a 400-level student of adulthood education lamented about his number one challenge the issue of finance, he said: “I see it that if you’re not financially stable no matter all your efforts you will be slowed down”. Another challenge is the issue of missing scripts due to the large number of students taking the course their scripts tend to get missing.
Reports and Photos by Aladuge Clarion Agboola (Educational Foundation correspondent) (5/5)
Edited by Isama Anyaole Peace
