Teacher Education and acquisition of democratic values: Issues and challenges

Abstract

This paper looks at how democratic values can be acquired through teacher education programmes in the Nigerian society. Nigeria as a nation for long desired for democratic system of government where all interest and ethnic groups in the country will have a say in the governance of the country through their elected representatives. This dream came into reality in 1999 when the then Military Head of State handed over power to democratically elected civilian Head of State. Formal education through effective teacher education is considered : appropriate for citizens to acquire democratic values needed in the society. Teacher education is specifically designed for pre-service teachers to acquire skills, dispositions, knowledge, habits, attitudes, values, norms, ethics and professional competencies that prepare them to effectively influence their leamers. Thus, pre-service teachers are able to acquire all these through citizenship education. Teachers therefore, serve as models of emulation where democratic leadership styles are imbibed. Challenges such as difficulty in teaching citizenship education, bad personality traits of pre-service teachers’ educators and bad leadership style often hinder the effectiveness of teacher training institution in training pre-service teacher for effective acquisition of democratic values. Thus, teacher training institutions should be managed in a way that could demonstrate core democratic values among others.