EXAMINING TEACHER DEMAND-SUPPLY TRENDS AND STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN CHEMISTRY IN SOUTHWEST NIGERIA: EVIDENCE FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE REFORM

Abstract

The study examined chemistry teacher demand-supply trends alongside students’ academic achievement in chemistry in West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) from 2017-2023 in public secondary schools in Southwest, Nigeria with a view to providing evidence-based directions for sustainable quality assurance reform. The research design adopted was retrospective-trend survey. The population comprised 6 directors of Administration and Supplies of State Ministries of Education and 2,140 principals of Senior Secondary Schools in Southwest Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure involving the use of simple random sampling, total enumeration, and convenience sampling techniques were used to select 30 respondents which comprised 3 directors and 27 principals from 27 schools in Ekiti, Ogun and Oyo States. Three validated research instruments were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics and trendline charts were used to analyse the research questions while the null hypotheses tested for lag effects between two time-series datasets using Cross Correlation Function. Findings revealed that chemistry achievement trends showed a general decline from 2017 to 2023 (55.4% to 45.2%). The trend of demand for chemistry teachers showed consistent increase from 3.93 to 4.60 with an annual average of  4.05, whereas supply trend showed a general decline from 1.81 to 1.19. There was a significant time-based relationship between supply of chemistry teachers from 2017-2023 and academic achievement of students in Chemistry (Lag 0: r = .889, p < .05). The study concluded that declining supply of Chemistry teachers over the years was matched by a corresponding drop in students’ academic achievement rates. Teacher supply and workforce planning emerges as a critical area requiring quality assurance reform, thus government should prioritise proactive teacher recruitment, improved deployment mechanisms, and retention strategies.

DOI: https://doie.org/10.10318/SER.2026179018