Journals

The concept language in contact has witnessed an infusion of multiple terminologies from the 19th to 21st century. Languages in contact are continuously constantly influencing one another even though differently related. This paper has therefore tried to present the nature and types of contact the Hausa language has with the manor, major and foreign languages. The paper presents what is language in contact and the development of terminologies through the centuries. The focus of current researches on language in contact however, are directed towards comparison of language in contact. Situations rather than individual language situations. This paper, tries to study the properties that the Hausa language admist foreign, major and minor languages have in common, and to identify the constraints on the quality of mutual influences between these languages. The Hausa, as shown by this paper, is endangering other languages of the North. The plight of the proponents of minor and middle languages of Nigeria is yet to generate any significant effect.

The problems facing Nigeria ranges from poverty, unemployment, over dependence on foreign goods and technology. The Nigerian government introduced entrepreneurship education as a pathway to stimulate selfsufficiency, self-sustainability and self-support skill in students. The aim is to ensure graduates take advantages of personal resourcefulness to be selfemployed. This is because entrepreneurship concerns the persistent pursuit of opportunities to create wealth through innovative usage of materials found around them. Therefore, this paper examines the impart of metal junk art as entrepreneurship education on self-reliance with a view to assessing its implication on the universe of opportunities. Entrepreneurship as an instrument of social change and in education is also given attention to in this paper. The secondary method of data collection was employed where conference papers, journals and textbooks were used. This paper argues that metal junk art will equip the students with the required skill necessary for entrepreneurship by converting waste to wealth. It is recommended among others that skill acquisition programme should be encouraged and funded properly in order to overcome poverty and unemployment in Nigeria.

Students’ performance in mathematics had over the years been persistently poor which as a matter of fact attracted attention from various stakeholders and further raised interest in teachers’ experience in delivering the subject matter. In order to address the issue, MDGs came in to assist by sponsoring capacity building workshops for primary school teachers so that the problem would be tackled from the grassroots. The paper as such explores the impact of this capacity building workshop and how it assists teachers since its inception on how to increase their level of competence. Two instruments were used for the study; namely Teacher Competence Test (TCT) and Pupils’ Performance Test(PPT). The result of the study shows that there is difference in the performance of pupils taught by teachers thatattended the MDGs capacity building workshop. Sixty (60) teachers were selected purposively for the study andfour hundred and eighteen (418) pupils were selected to form the sample of the students. Hypotheses stated in the study were tested at 0.05 level of significance. After testing the hypotheses, it was found that both the performances of teachers and pupils were tremendously inmproved as a result of the capacity building workshop. The paper finally offers recommendations on how to help teachers increase their performance by exposing them to more rigorous academic training and the programme should be extended to senior secondary school teachers.

A challenged environment is one which does not easily promote effective teaching and learning. If teaching which is fundamental to learning is to be effective in a challenged environment therefore, teachers and learners have to be adequately prepared to cope with the challenges. The problem of achievement gaps among students has been evident in education for many years. This study looks at the works of researchers on reducing gaps in the achievement of students. Bloom observed that teaching all students in the same way and giving all the same time to learn provides little variation in achievement. Students for whom the instructional methods and amount of time are appropriate learn well, and those for whom the methods and time are less appropriate learn less well. Bloom argued that educators and teachers must increase variation in instructional approaches and learning time. In an educationally-challenged atmosphere like ours, this research is very apt. The findings will be useful for improving teachers’ effectiveness in bringing about higher achievement in low-achieving learners, thereby closing their achievement gaps irrespective of the challenges of the learning environment.