Institutional Autonomy and Teacher Preparation: A Case for Independent Teacher Education Institutions in South-South, Nigeria

This study investigated the relationship between institutional autonomy and teacher preparation in teacher education institutions in South-South Nigeria in order to make a case for teacher education institutions that are independent. Adopted correlational survey design and the study was carried out in the six states of the South-South geopolitical zone. Four research questions and corresponding four hypotheses guided the study. The population included the 17,427 stakeholders namely provosts / deans, heads of departments, lecturers and final year students from the Colleges of Education and the Faculties of Education. The sample size of 600 respondents was selected using multi-stage sampling technique from six purposively selected institutions. The data was gathered by a validated questionnaire, entitled “Institutional Autonomy and Teacher Preparation Questionnaire” (IATPQ) and has a Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of 0.83. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and One-way ANOVA were used to analyze the data. The results showed that academic autonomy had a positive statistically significant relationship with the quality of teacher preparation (r = 0.277; p < 0.001), administrative autonomy with innovation in teacher preparation programmes (r = 0.455; p < 0.001), and financial autonomy with the effectiveness of teacher preparation (r = 0.392; p < 0.001). The overall mean scores of the stakeholders showed positive perceptions regarding the need and feasibility of independent teacher education institutions (ITEIs), F(3,574) = 17.395, p < 0.001, but there were significant differences among stakeholder groups. The study finds that increased autonomy in the academic, administrative, and financial aspects of teacher preparation could significantly improve in the region the quality of teacher preparation, the innovation of teacher education, and effectiveness. It suggests giving more autonomy to Colleges of Education and step towards a balanced regulatory system to respond to the persistent challenges and create teachers that are prepared for the 21st century classrooms.