ABSTRACT
This study focused on influence of teacher quality and changes in minimum standards on performance of Primary Education educators in Colleges of Education, Nigeria. It focused on issues which influence PED educators implementing curriculum changes. In this study, nine objectives were formulated which covered different variables which include: the extent of influence of the educational levels of PED educators and increase in course content on the implementation of changed PED minimum standards in Nigerian Colleges of Education. Nine (9) null hypotheses and nine (9) research questions were formulated based on the objectives of the study. The theoretical framework of the study hinged on models of curricular dissemination by adopting Context, Input, Process and Product Evaluation (CIPP) and Integrated Curriculum Evaluation Model (ICEM. This study adopted expost facto research design; The targeted population covered the eighty-three colleges of education in Nigeria with total of seventy-seven thousand, three hundred and eighty six (77,386) made up of seventy six thousand, five hundred and twelve (76,512) PES students and Eight Hundred and Forty-Two (842) PES educators. A purposive sampling technique was adopted in selecting the sample for the study. Three geopolitical zones, namely, North West, South West and South South were selected for the study. The study also adopted 20% of the colleges as sample size. A total of thirteen colleges made up of four (4) federal and nine (9) state colleges of education were sampled. An interview was conducted on NCCE officers, while questionnaires were administered to PES educators, NCE II and NCE III PES students, including PES products teaching in staff schools and their head teachers. The research questions were subjected to simple percentages while the hypotheses were tested using chi-square at P value of P<0.05 level of significance for acceptance or rejection and all the tested hypotheses were rejected. The findings among others revealed that PES educators' area of specialization has significant influence on the implementation of the changed PES minimum standards in Nigerian colleges of education. Based on the above findings, it was recommended amongst others that effort should be made to ensure that only specialized professionally trained PES educators be assigned to implement the changed minimum standard curriculum in colleges of education. Also, the changes of minimum standards should not be done too often, the act that mandated every five years of changes should be strictly adhered to by the NCCE