QUALITY OF SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS, A DILEMMA TO THE PROGRESS OF EDUCATION IN AFRICA

The study was on how quality of science textbooks is a dilemma to the progress of education in Africa. Textbook is a veritable tool that provides students and teachers with basic facts that guide teaching and learning of information, skills, knowledge and learning tasks both inside and outside the classroom. The study enumerated many evaluation studies by different individuals on the content and readability of texts used in African schools. Most of them as the results indicated were lacking on these issues. The study also sampled the opinion of 160 teachers from Nigeria using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was face and content validated by experts in measurement and evaluation. Reliability of this instrument was estimated using Cronbach alpha with a coefficient of internal consistency of 0.72. The study found that though the African texts enhance scientific literacy but they lack the means of enabling students apply science concepts to real life situations. African texts are foreign to African culture and do not make science students functional and innovative to the society. Little wonder, Africans extensively depend on outsiders for their scientific and technological discoveries. The paper recommended that African text should be meant to relate to African culture. Also help teachers inculcate in their students how science concepts can make African children functional, develop their intellectual and economic capability. A host of other recommendations were made in this paper.