Socio-Economic Empowerment of Senior Secondary Science Students in Nigeria and STEM Teachers' Preparedness

This study investigated socioeconomic empowerment of senior secondary science students in Nigeria and STEM Teachers' Preparedness. A descriptive survey design was used. The study was conducted in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The population consisted of all 1,983 STEM teachers in the 234 public secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State. Stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the sample, 318 (125 males and 193 females). Three research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The instrument for data collection was a 26-item Questionnaire on Socioeconomic Empowerment of Students and STEM teachers' preparedness developed by the researchers. The reliability of the instrument was established at .81 using Cronbach alpha coefficient. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while hypotheses were analysed and tested at .05 alpha level of significance using t-test. Results showed that STEM teachers were not adequately prepared, lacked competencies and skills for socioeconomic empowerment of their students. Moreover, there is inadequate availability for practical and hands-on activities. Based on the findings, recommendations were made among which are the redesigning of the teacher education programme and training/retraining of STEM teachers to acquire necessary competencies and skills for socioeconomic empowerment of students.