TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN PUBLIC SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF NORTH CENTRAL STATES, NIGERIA

The study focused on the assessment of the Teachers' Professional Development and Students' Academic Achievement in Public Senior Secondary Schools of North Central States, Nigeria. The study was guided by three research questions with the corresponding three objectives and three hypotheses. The research design used for this study was the descriptive survey research design. The population of the study consisted of 45, 922 subjects. The sample size of the study consisted of 4305 respondents. The researcher's self-developed instrument that consisted of 32 items was used for data collection. The instrument was duly validated and it yielded 0.83 as a logical validity index. The instrument was pilot tested on 50 staff and the coefficient of internal consistency of 0.79 was obtained. Descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation and simple percentage were used to answer the research questions while Pearson's product moment correlation was used for testing the hypotheses. The major findings of the study indicated that there is a low significant relationship between workshops and conferences and students' academic achievement in public senior secondary schools in North Central States, Nigeria, there is a low significant relationship between mentoring and students’ academic achievement in public senior secondary schools in North Central States, Nigeria and there is a low significant relationship between induction course and students' academic achievement in public senior secondary schools in North Central States, Nigeria. The study recommended among others that various state ministries of education in the North Central of Nigeria should set aside special funds to organize workshops and sponsor teachers for conferences to help them acquire additional skills and knowledge on the modern teaching techniques and strategies that will help them to teach the students effectively to improve their academic achievement.