Staffing patterns of state colleges of education libraries in Nigeria.
Onifade, Gabriel Olatunde ; Onifade, Fehintola Nike
Introduction
The College of Education system is one of the tripods of tertiary
education in Nigeria and it has the primary role of training teachers
who will be awarded the minimum teaching qualification of Nigerian
Certificate of Education (NCE). This certificate qualifies one to teach
in junior secondary schools and technical colleges in Nigeria and it
takes three years to complete. These teachers' institutions were
formally known as Advanced Teachers' Colleges and were affiliated
to different universities in Nigeria. They were later transformed into
Colleges of Education under the supervision of one umbrella body known
as the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) established
in 1989. There are 64 colleges of education in Nigeria, classified
according to their ownership; hence, we have 20 federal, 39 state, 1
military and 4 private colleges of education. The state colleges of
education are established and funded by their respective State
governments. (NCCE, 1996, NCCE, 2002).
Literature Review
Education has been described as the bed rock of every society and
the tools for nation building, therefore for qualitative education to be
achieved; the supply of teachers must be adequate in quantity and
quality (Adegbesan 2010). Ukeje (1995) emphasized that education unlocks
the door to modernization, but it is the teacher who holds the key to
the door. In corroborating this, Gambo (1999) argued that "the
Nigerian teachers must be intellectually, conscientiously, highly
motivated and professionally sound individuals that are capable of
discharging their professional obligations to the nation. As a result
such individual must be ever learning, up-to-date in knowledge, skills
and ideas and very adaptable to changing needs and situation.
In recognizing the vital roles of teachers, the Federal Government
of Nigeria stated in its National Policy of Education that
teachers' education will continue to be given a major emphasis in
all the nation's educational planning efforts (Federal Republic of
Nigeria 1989). Jekayinfa (2010) traced the origin of teachers'
education to the beginning of western education in Nigeria when the
first teachers' college known as 'The Training
Institution' was established in Abeokuta in 1859 by Church
Missionary Society. The school was later moved to Oyo to become the St
Andrew College and later upgraded to be the Oyo State College of
Education. Later on the National Commission for Colleges of Education
(NCCE) was established by Act 3 of January 1989 and was amended by Act
12 of 1993 as a completion of tripod of excellence in supervision of
higher education in Nigeria (NCCE online 2010). This commission provides
accreditation services for Colleges of Education and maintains standards
through periodic accreditation visits.
Sanusi (2006) observed that the Colleges of Education can not
accomplish their tasks without the back-up of relevant and functional
libraries. Hence, the National Commission for Colleges of Education
mandated all the Colleges of Education to have functional libraries in
order to achieve their academic purpose. These libraries have the goals
of assisting their colleges by providing learning and reading resources
in order to achieve the objectives of producing well molded teachers in
their chosen disciplines. However, to be functional and successful in
its operations, a library needs skilled, qualified and adequate human
resources to make up the staff (Egunjobi 2006). Arugbayi (2009) also
corroborated that the strength of a good educational programme is not
the beautiful buildings, adequate equipment/facilities, sound curriculum
but the quality and quantity of the staff. In other words, staff that
will build up and maintain the collection of a library as well as
provide various services to the students and academic staff of a college
is indispensable in a library. Oriowo (2001) contended that the success
or failure of a library depends on the skill and abilities of people who
make up the staff. Hence, staff must be sufficient in number to meet the
demand made upon it, and it should have the right mixture of
qualifications and experience in order to perform to users'
expectation.
Staff in colleges of education libraries is categorized into
professionals (librarians), sub-professionals (library officers) and
non-professionals. The duties of these three categories of staff are
different but interwoven and any laxity on the part of a given group
will affect the duties of others (Egunjobi, 2002). This emphasizes the
importance of adequate staffing in a library both in term of quantity
and quality. Egunjobi (2006) observed that the number of staff needed by
a library is usually determined by the number of population to be served
as well as the collection of the library, by implication whenever the
number of library staff is inadequate both in number and quality, there
may be tendency to over-stretch those on ground and the quality of
services provided may not be adequate for the population they are meant
to serve.
According to the National Commission for Colleges of Education
standard for running libraries, the posts in the college library were
divided into professional, sub-professionals and non-professionals
posts. The NCCE standard also specified that the professionals are those
who have acquired the skills and training in librarianship and processed
at least a first degree or its equivalent in library and information
studies and are employed on the career cadre of
'librarianship' in the college system. The sub-professionals
are library officers who hold diploma certificates in librarianship;
they assist librarians in the technical and service functions of the
library while the non-professional posts comprise the library
assistants. The professional staff of the library is also treated as
academic staff in terms of appointment, promotion and other conditions
of service (NCCE 1994). Although, this recognition did not come until
after a protracted battle and subsequent agreement between the Academic
Staff Union of Universities and the Federal Government (Egunjobi 2001).
Sequel to the above Egunjobi (2006) claimed that librarians in the
college system could not be left out in research activities;
nevertheless, the librarians have lived up to expectations, competing
favourably well with their teaching counterparts in publishing their
research work. However, Agboola (2000) generally declared that academic
libraries are the most developed in terms of funding, staffing, stock
and services in Nigerian librarianship. The NCCE standard also stated
that a college library shall operate with not less than three
professional staff and it shall maintain a staff ratio of 1:5 (i.e., one
professional to 5non-professional staff).
Statement of the Problem
Staffing in a library set up is very important. However, as
important as it is, staffing is often taken for granted or ignored in
some colleges of education libraries, such that staff vacancies may not
be filled, while those on ground are often over-stretch thereby making
the services of the library inadequate for the community they are meant
to serve. Hence this study set out to examine the staffing pattern of
State Colleges of Education libraries in Nigeria.
Objectives of the Study
The objective of this study is to examine:
* The number of professional and paraprofessional staff in Nigerian
State Colleges of Education Libraries
* The number of librarians as against the number of population
served as well as against the volume of collection the libraries; and
* The quality of professional staff in terms of qualification in
Nigerian state colleges of education libraries.
Scope
This study is limited to staffing patterns in state colleges of
education libraries in Nigeria. The state colleges of education in
Nigeria are those which receive funding from their respective state
governments. Clerical and other administrative staff is not included in
this study.
Research Questions
1. What is the staffing pattern of State Colleges of Education in
Nigeria?
2. Are there more professional than sub professional staff in State
Colleges of Education libraries in Nigeria?
3. What is the ratio of librarians to the population served and to
collection of their libraries?
4. What proportions of the professional librarians are male?
5. What proportions of the professional librarians are female?
6. What is the most common qualification held by librarians in the
college libraries surveyed?
Methodology
The survey method was used for this study. Questionnaire was used
as the main instrument of data collection. 39 copies of questionnaires
were directly mailed to the heads of libraries in all state colleges of
education. The state colleges of education were selected for this study
because a similar study had been done by Egunjobi and Oyewole (2006) in
Federal colleges of education in Nigeria. In order to evaluate the face
and content validity of the questionnaire, the draft copies of the
questionnaire was given out to four chief librarians in the college
system to assist in evaluating content. The corrected and final
questionnaire was sent out with self address envelops in June 2009.
However, other copies of the questionnaire were sent out to the same
audience in January 2010 when the earlier ones were not returned. The
items of the questionnaire addresses issues such as the number of
professionals and sub professionals in each library, the qualification
of the professionals, student and academic staff population, total
number of staff undergoing in-service training and the types of
training. Out of the thirty nine questionnaires forwarded by mail to the
college librarians, only twenty copies were returned by September ending
2010. This forms 51.2% of the questionnaires sent out. The returned
questionnaires were analyzed and used for this study. Data was analyzed
using simple percentage calculation.
College Libraries under Survey
Twenty College of Education Libraries were examined in this study.
Their date of establishment shows that all of them had being in
existence for at least ten years. This reveals that they are not new
establishments and therefore they are suppose to have attain a certain
level of development in term of adequate facilities which including
adequate and quality library staff. Their date of establishment ranges
from 1970 to 1997 as shown in the table below:
Findings and Discussion
The College librarians were asked to indicate the volume of their
collection, numbers of student and staff, number of librarians and
number of library officers, number of library sections headed by
professionals and sub-professionals as well as professional training
opportunities available. Their responses to these issues were analyzed
to answer the research questions generated earlier in this study.
Percentage of Professional and Sub-Professional Staff
Data collected revealed that in all the 20 colleges of education
libraries surveyed, 91 (47.9%) librarians and 99 (52.1%) library
officers were employed. This shows that on the whole, there are more
sub-professionals in these libraries. Further examination showed that
8(40%) of the libraries have higher number of professionals than
sub-professionals. This is in sharp contrast to the findings of Egunjobi
and Oyewole (2006) which reported the reverse of this result. The study
also revealed that while the number of professionals in the libraries
surveyed range from a minimum of two to a maximum of eight persons, the
sub-professionals range from a minimum of one to a maximum of eleven
persons. The issue of more library officers (sub-professionals) than
librarians in the state colleges of education libraries may be as a
result of shortage of fund to employ more qualified staff as most
Nigerian state governments are battling with economic melt down which is
in turn having effect on their educational institutions. A closer look
at the data also reveals that wherever the number of sub-professionals
is high, there are usually a lower number of professionals. This
indicated that some sub-professionals staffs may likely be assigned to
perform professional duties due to shortage of professional staff which
may not be in the best interest of the library and the library users.
Moreover, going by the NCCE standard for the college libraries, which
stated that a college library shall operate with not less than three
professional staff and it shall maintain a staff ratio of 1:5. The
interpretation is that where there is 3 librarians there must be 15
paraprofessional librarians and the total number of staff should be 20.
Though, only 1(5%) of the libraries is operating with less than three
professional but non of the libraries is able to maintain the
recommended ratio. This shows that most of the college libraries are
operating with inadequate number of library staff. In fact only the
College of Education Agbor has the correct number of staff but not in
the recommended ratio.
Librarians Ratio to Patrons Population and Collection Volumes
Out of the twenty colleges involved in this survey, only nineteen
responded to this aspect of the questionnaire by producing data on the
total volume of their collection and their student/academic staff
population vis-a-vis the number of librarians. This is represented in
Table III.
From the table above, while eighteen libraries provided information
on total collection in volumes and student population, seventeen
provided information on the academic staff population. The total number
of students and academic staff is taken to be the estimated total number
of population served by the library. The ratio of librarians to the
volume of books collection in the college libraries range from 1
librarian per 1338 volumes of books to 1 librarian per 22,779 volumes of
books. In the same vein, the population served by a librarian range from
530 persons to 3110 persons. Though there is no specific standard set by
the supervisory body in this regard but Agboola (1994) stated that the
National University Commission recommended the ratio of one librarian to
two hundred fulltime equivalent students in the university libraries.
Consequently, Arubayi (2009) discovered that the computed lecturer
/students ratio in state colleges of education is 1:27 in 2002/2003
session. If this is so for lecturers, it is quite obvious that having
one librarian serving 530 students is inadequate while having one
librarian for a collection of about 22,779 volumes and 2,248 persons as
in the case of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto is rather
highly inadequate. The librarian will not be able to serve the
population adequately and the students may not be able to access
important information sources and might be missing out vital information
that could have made them better equipped for the task ahead of them.
Gender Distribution
Out of the total of 91 professionals (librarians) working in the
twenty colleges libraries surveyed, 63 are male while 28 are female.
This is shown in the table below;
From Table IV, while 69.2% of the librarians are male, only 30.8%
are female. This indicates that librarianship in Nigerian Colleges of
Education is dominated by men. In fact, seven (35%) of the colleges
surveyed do not have females among their librarians at all and on the
other hand, 1 (5%) of the colleges libraries do not have a male among
its librarians. This implies that there is gender imbalance in staffing
pattern of the state colleges of education in Nigeria. This result
corroborates Arubayi (2009) report that only 21% of the lecturers in
State Colleges of Education were female. In a library where only male
librarians are employed it is likely that the operations of the library
might be too strict and this may not attract users. On the other hand,
women are known to be more passionate and through their passion may be
able to relate more effectively with their users. However, a library
would need the services of both the female librarians as well as that of
the male librarians to provide quality services to their users more
over, this will make the library more interesting.
Common Qualification held and Type of In-Service-training
Analysis of the qualifications held by librarians in the colleges
indicated that 43 (47.3%) librarians have Bachelors Degree in library
science, 46 (50.5%) held a Masters Degree in librarianship (MLS) while
2(2.2%) held a Doctor of Philosophy Degree. This is presented in Table
V.
It is quite commendable that majority 48(52.7%) of the librarians
in the tate Colleges of Education had masters degree in librarianships.
This may be due to the fact that most Colleges of Education in Nigeria
now require a minimum of Postgraduate degrees for lectureship and since
librarians are accorded the same status with their teaching counter
parts, it is compulsory for them too to acquire Postgraduate degree.
Further analysis of the data reveals that out of the 48 librarians that
have masters' degree, 25 (52.1%) have their background in
education, 10 (20.8%) have theirs in arts/humanitarian studies, 8
(16.7%) in social science while only 5 (10.4%) have in sciences.
However, 43 librarians that have only first degree, obtained it in
library science, this may be due to the fact that most of them rise
through the ranks and therefore have to go through diploma program in
librarianship which was made possible through in-service training. Only
two librarians according to the data have doctorate degree, however,
there is the tendency for more staff to progress on courses leading to
the award of PhD in librarianship because librarianship in Nigerian
academic libraries keeps on evolving.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The study reveals that the state colleges of education libraries in
Nigeria employed more paraprofessional librarians than the
professionals, though none of them is operating with less than three
librarians which is the minimum professional staff requirement for a
college of education library, the number of librarians in most libraries
is grossly inadequate for the number of collection as well as population
served by such libraries. As a result, these librarians may be
overstretched in performing their duties and may not be able to perform
at their optimal. Also the gender gap appears to be too wide and
worrisome as librarianship in state colleges of education libraries in
Nigeria is highly dominated by male librarians.
In term of quality, majority of the librarians have masters degree
qualification, however, there is the likelihood of an increase in the
number of staff enrolling for doctorate degree since librarianship in
Nigerian academic libraries is assuming a new dimension with the recent
change in the status of the university librarians which make it possible
for them to become professors. The study also reveals that many of the
libraries staff are developing themselves through in-service training.
There is no gain saying that proper staffing is essential for effective
library services in state colleges of education library. It is therefore
recommended that:
1. State colleges of education should try and run their libraries
according the NCCE standard i.e each library should not employed below 3
professional staff and should maintain the ratio of 1professional staff
to 5 para-professional staff.
2. The gender imbalance in the employment of male professional
librarian should be corrected by employing more female librarians.
3. Librarian having bachelor degree should be encouraged to proceed
for their master's programmes. This is important as a master's
degree is now been use in Nigeria an entry point to rise through the
academic career ladder in the colleges of education.
4. There is also the need to encourage the master's degree
holders to proceed on PhD programme as this will help them stand
shoulder to shoulder with their teaching counterparts as academic staff,
and also to expand the frontier of librarianship in academic
environment.
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Gabriel Olatunde Onifade
Deputy Librarian
Gani Belo Library
Federal College of Education
Abeokuta, Nigeria
Fehintola Nike Onifade
Principal Librarian
University of Agriculture
Abeokuta, Nigeria
Table I: List of Libraries Surveyed
Year of
College Establishment
1 Shehu Shagari COE Sokoto 1970
2 Adeniran Ogunsanya COE, Oto-Ijanikin 1973
3 Kwara State COE, Ilorin 1974
4 COE Akwanga 1976
5 COE Katsina-Ala 1977
6 Kashim Ibrahim COE, Maiduguri 1977
7 Kaduna State COE, Gidan Waya 1977
8 COE, Ikere Ekiti 1978
9 COE, Oro 1978
10 Ogun State COE, Omu 1978
11 COE, Ekiadolor 1980
12 COE, Agbor 1980
13 COE, Gindiri 1980
14 Nwafor Orizu COE, Nsugbe 1981
15 Oyo State COE, Oyo 1983
16 COE, Hong 1983
17 Isha Kaita COE, Dustin-Ma 1991
18 COE, Oju, Oturkpo 1991
19 Adamu Augie COE, Argungu 1996
20 FCT, COE, Zuba 1997
Table II: Number of Professionals and Sub-Professionals
No of
No of Sub.-
College Library Prof % Prof. % Total
1 SS, COE, Sokoto 2 40 3 60 5
2 AO, COE, Oto-Ijanikin 5 84 1 16 6
3 KS COE, Ilorin 5 50 5 50 10
4 COE, Akwanga 5 27 8 73 11
5 COE, Katsina-Ala 5 19 11 81 16
6 KI, COE, Maiduguri 5 56 4 44 9
7 KS, COE, Gidan Waya 4 40 6 60 10
8 COE, Ikere-Ekiti 7 58 5 42 12
9 COE, Oro 3 50 3 50 6
10 COE, Omu 7 64 4 36 11
11 COE, Ekiadolor 3 60 2 40 5
12 COE, Agbor 8 44 10 56 18
13 COE, Gindiri 4 36 7 64 11
14 COE, Nsugbe 4 44 5 56 9
15 COE, Oyo 5 56 4 44 9
16 COE, Hong 4 57 3 43 7
17 COE, Dustin-Ma 4 29 10 71 14
18 COE, Oju, Oturkpo 5 83 1 17 6
19 COE, Argungu 3 30 7 70 10
20 COE, Zuba 3 100 -- -- 3
Total 91 47 99 53 190
Table III: Librarians Ratio to Collection and Population Served
Total Total
Coll Total Acad Stu/Acad
College in vol Stu Pop Staff Staff Pop
COE, Sokoto 45559 4100 396 4496
COE, Ekiadolor 37300 5706 140 5846
COE, Agbor 35400 12500 350 12850
COE, Gidanwaya 34000 6000 NS NS
COE, Ikere Ekiti 30000 12000 320 12320
COE, Maiduguri 27120 2500 150 2650
COE, Gindiri 24116 12224 217 12441
COE Akwanga 23400 6000 400 6400
COE KatsinaAla 23000 10000 560 10560
COE Ilorin 19225 5600 85 5685
COE Dutsin-Ma 19000 7800 165 7965
COE, Omu 15237 15000 384 15384
COE Hong 13000 5250 129 5379
COE, Oro 11000 8000 NS NS
COE Oju 8914 9950 307 10257
COE Argungu 8463 2165 150 2315
COE Zuba 5090 NS 134 NS
COE Nsugbe NS 5090 264 5354
COE, Oyo 20404 11000 315 11315
Libns/
Libns/ Staff
No of Coll Students
College Libns Ratio Ratio
COE, Sokoto 2 1:22779 1:2248
COE, Ekiadolor 5 1:7460 1:1169
COE, Agbor 8 1:4425 1:1606
COE, Gidanwaya 4 1:8500 NS
COE, Ikere Ekiti 7 1:4285 1:1760
COE, Maiduguri 5 1:5424 1:530
COE, Gindiri 4 1:6029 1:3110
COE Akwanga 3 1:7800 1:2133
COE KatsinaAla 5 1:4600 1:2112
COE Ilorin 5 1:3851 1:1137
COE Dutsin-Ma 4 1:4750 1:1991
COE, Omu 7 1:2176 1:2197
COE Hong 4 1:3250 1:1344
COE, Oro 3 1:3666 NS
COE Oju 5 1:1782 1:2051
COE Argungu 3 1:2821 1:771
COE Zuba 3 1:1696 NS
COE Nsugbe 4 NS 1:1338
COE, Oyo 5 1:4080 1:2263
Table IV: Gender Distribution of Librarians
Library Male Female Total
CEO Sokoto 2 -- 2
COE, Ijanikin 1 4 5
COE Ilorin 4 1 5
COE Akwanga 5 -- 5
COE Katsina-Ala 5 -- 5
COE Maiduguri 3 2 5
COE Gidanwaya 3 1 4
COE Ikere Ekiti 6 1 7
COE Oro 3 -- 3
COE Omu 4 3 7
COE Ekiadolor -- 3 3
COE Agbor 3 5 8
COE Gindiri 3 1 4
COE Nsugbe 4 -- 4
COE Oyo 2 3 5
COE Hong 2 2 4
COE Dustin-Ma 4 -- 4
COE Oturkpo 4 1 5
COE Argungu 3 -- 3
COE Zuba 2 1 3
Total 63 69.2 28 30.8 91
Table V: Qualifications Held by Librarians
Library BLS MLS PHD TOTAL
COE Sokoto 1 1 -- 2
COE Ijanikin 2 3 -- 5
COE,Ilorin 4 1 -- 5
COE Akwanga 2 2 1 5
COE Katsina-Ala 4 1 -- 5
COE Maiduguri 3 2 -- 5
COE Gidanwaya 2 2 -- 4
COE Ikere Ekiti 1 6 -- 7
COE Oro 2 1 -- 3
COE Omu 2 5 -- 7
COE Ekiadolor 1 2 -- 3
COE Agbor 5 3 -- 8
COE Gindiri 2 2 -- 4
COE Nsugbe -- 4 -- 4
COE Oyo 1 3 1 5
COE Hong 2 2 -- 4
COE Dustin Ma 2 2 -- 4
COE Oturkpo 2 3 -- 5
COE Argungu 2 1 -- 3
COE Zuba 3 -- -- 3
Total 43 46 2 91
