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Page will reload when a filter is selected or excluded.- Access 2 results 2
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- Phonological processes constitute a veritable means to tracing language development, especially in children. Extant studies on Nigerian children’s phonological processes have examined errors and deviations, with little attention to language as an instrument for measuring children’s linguistic development. Therefore, this study was designed to examine children’s phonological processes and the constraints ranking responsible for them, with a view to tracing their linguistic development. Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky’s Optimality Theory was used as the framework, while the descriptive design was adopted. One hundred and two participants were purposively selected. Seventy-five and twenty-five children from primary schools in Lagos and Oyo states, respectively, were selected because of their age range of four to six years, and they read a prepared text. The choice of the states was motivated by their proximal, cosmopolitan and multicultural features. Also, two children, named child A, aged one year-three months, and child B, aged four years-three months, were observed in their homes in Oyo and Lagos states, respectively, for six months for the purpose of longitudinal observation. All utterances were audio-recorded. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics, perceptual and acoustic analyses. The phonological processes identified were substitution (28.8%), vowel strengthening (23.2%), monophthongisation (15.7%), deletion (15.4%), assimilation (6.6%), gliding (4.3%) and yod coalescence (2.7%). Utterances were slow-paced, with an average of 4.8 minutes per participant, and phonemes were often singly produced. Constraints ranking favoured markedness over faithfulness constraints, such as *SCHWA >> αF, NODIPHTHONG >> MAX, *Ct#C >> *COMPLEX >> MAX and AGREE(PLACE) >> IDENT-IO. The participants’ linguistic development was noticeable in the instantiations of their processes, which were similar to the ambient variety of Nigerian English. The instances were very intelligible and significantly manifested beyond word level. They were also functional for achieving juncture prosody, cluster reduction and gemination. However, non-adult instances, like morphophonemic deletions, persisted, showing that the participants had not fully attained the adult level of phonological processes. In the longitudinal data, child A acquired voiced and labial consonants first, and codas suffered deletion more than onsets in monosyllables. By age two, child A had begun to produce polysyllables and closed syllables, and deletion changed from whole syllables to only phonemes. By age five, child B’s processes had begun to resemble adults’ and, more energy-demanding processes like epenthesis, voicing and vowel strengthening emerged. Tonalisation of English words and indigenous interference occurred in their utterances. The spectrogram showed that the outset of acquisition with child A featured weaker energy, like in unaspirated plosives; however, energy increased and stabilised as the participant got older, as indicated in the darker shades. The formant values of the participants’ vowels on the acoustic chart showed similarity to the cardinal vowel chart in terms of height and position of the tongue. Phonological processes in Nigerian children’s spoken English emerged through constraints reranking and increasingly become more like adults’ as the years pass by. 2 results 2
- Recurrent unit cost 2 results 2
- Abstract The Nigerian University System (NUS) currently comprises a total of 264 Universities, 53 of which are owned by the Federal Government, 62 owned by the various State Governments while the remaining 149 are Privately owned. The total student population is in the region of Two Million and Five Hundred Thousand. In this lecture, we have examined the issue of access, quality, funding and governance as they affect the NUS. Interrogating data published by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) over the period 2017 to 2023 we present quantitative, verifiable and objective assessment of addressing the question of equity in the adoption of Educationally-Less- Developed-States (ELDS) as a criterion for the selection of candidates for admission into undergraduate programmes in Nigerian Federal Universities. A trend analysis of contemporary events shows that the Nigerian University System will continue to grow, rather haphazardly and in an unplanned manner, in leaps and bounds especially in terms of student enrollment. Without a concomitant strengthening of leadership and governance, a substantial increase in funding for teaching and learning facilities, conduct of advanced research that is locally relevant and globally competitive (including but not limited to issues of food security, lagging economic development, climate change, reduction of carbon emission, natural resources degradation, insecurity), payment of decent wages to the knowledge workers amidst the continued exodus of the best and the brightest from the country, quality and relevance of the Universities in ensuring sustainable socio-economic development might suffer. A major feature of the Public Universities (Federal- and State-owned) which currently accounts for about 95% of the total student enrollment is incessant strikes by members of the various staff unions which has led to a cumulative loss of six years and three months in the last 32 years. Funding has been implicated as the root cause of these strikes. In order to be competitive there should be synergy between the Governments as university proprietors for a moratorium on these disruptive strikes. Conscious efforts should be made to internationalise in terms of student enrollment and the recruitment of academic staff. Some of the States on the current list of ELDS, in particular Kwara and Kogi, have posted excellent results and are now in the First Quartile justifying that they ought to be taken off the list. The same applies to Nasarawa which is in the Second Quartile. On the other hand, Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory are in the Fourth Quartile and if the ELDS is to be retained both should be included in the list. The National Council on Education should take a closer look at this recommendation with a view to implementing same. To the extent that the absence of a Governing Council hampers the proper functioning of a University and is an anathema to University Autonomy, it is our considered recommendation that the National Assembly should as a matter of urgent national importance amend the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) Act, 2003 in Section 2A as to provide that if the Council of a Federal University is dissolved, a new Council shall be constituted not later than three months 1 results 1
- Agribusiness 1 results 1
- Anthracnose disease 1 results 1
- Average class size 1 results 1
- Average-class-size 1 results 1
- Biological markers 1 results 1
- Built-up 1 results 1
- Collectricum lindemuthianum 1 results 1
- Computer Sciience 1 results 1
- Cowpea 1 results 1
- Cultivation 1 results 1
- Distance Education Programme (DEP) was introduced in the 1970s by some Nigerian universities as an alternative mode to the conventional delivery. However, reports have shown that the programme has been bedevilled by low quality learning, unethical practices and mismatch between policy and practice. Previous studies focused on enrolment, retention and analyses of some factors for motivating distance learners with less attention paid to evolution, practices and challenges of the programmes. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the evolution, practices and challenges of the undergraduate DEP in dual-mode federal universities in South-Western Nigeria, 1974-2014. Cognitive Dissonance, Independent Study and Transactional Distance Learning theories provided the framework, while historical and descriptive survey methods were adopted. The DEP of the three accredited dual-mode federal universities in South-Western Nigeria were enumerated, namely University of Lagos Distance Learning Institute (DLI), University of Ibadan Distance Learning Centre (DLC) and the Obafemi Awolowo University Centre for Distance Learning (CDL), Ile-Ife. Primary data included oral interviews with the centre / institute directors and archival materials of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and sampled institutions, while secondary sources included relevant textbooks, journal articles, bulletins, periodicals and unpublished Ph.D theses. Questionnaires were administered to the 77 tutors, 102 administrative staff and 959 distance learning students that were purposively selected based on their experience. Historical and descriptive methods were employed for data analyses The DEP began in 1974 with the establishment of the University of Lagos Correspondence and Open Studies Unit which eventually transmuted to DLI in 1997. The University of Ibadan External Studies Programme later changed to the Centre for External Studies in 1988 and became DLC in 2002, the same year the CDL was established in Ile-Ife. Although the institutions ran DEP on part-time basis between 2002-2009, accreditation of courses by the NUC in 2011 transited the programmes to full-fledged practice. The period 2009-2014 featured improved institutional commitment, better compliance with the NUC guidelines, general increase in enrolment and a reduction of face-to-face interactions. The DLI, DLC and CDL organised orientation programmes for new students and packaged instructions into tablets, but conducted interactive sessions respectively at weekends, week days and two weeks to examinations. The weighted mean across the centres / institute was high against > 2.50 threshold in term of Capacity Development (CD), Learner Support Services (LSS) and Quality Assurance (QA) respectively. The mean values of DLI, DLC and CDL on CD, LSS and QA are (2.98 + 0.75; 2.84 + 0.85; 3.35 + 0.83), (3.10 + 0.75; 2.89 + 0.74; 3.35 + 0.50 and (3.08 + 0.85; 2.92 + 0.87 3.41 + 0.90) respectively. Despite constraints of low internet bandwidths and erratic power supply in the Universities, the undergraduate DEP had transformed from correspondence to a technologically-driven mode. Within the four decades of existence, the undergraduate Distance Education Programmes in dual-mode federal universities in South-Western Nigeria had witnessed better regulatory framework and improved productivity in spite of infrastructural constraints. To enhance better practice of the programmes, all stakeholders should be more committed. 1 results 1
- Dual-mode Federal Universities in Nigeria 1 results 1
- Educated Isoko English 1 results 1
- Farmers in Southwest Nigeria 1 results 1
- Forest 1 results 1
- General 1 results 1
- Governanc 1 results 1
- Governance 1 results 1
- High concentration of heavy metals in agricultural soils has been reported to affect plan physiological processes and seed germination. There is, therefore need to ameliorate the effect of metal toxicity on germinating seeds. Greenhouse and laboratory studies were carried out to determine the effect of mixing lead (Pb) contaminated soil with uncontaminated soil on seed germination as well as on the physiological process and morphological features of germinating seeds. Greenhouse experiment involved the mixing of lead contaminated soil with uncontaminated soil in ratios; 10:90, 25:75, 50:50, 75:25, 100:0 and 0:100 to give six soil types of 10, 25, 50, 75, 100 and 0% contamination respectively with four replications. Maize and Jathropha crops were used as test crops for the experiments. The leachates collected from the six soil types were used to carry out germination test in the laboratory. They were labelled as 0. 10, 25, 50, 75 and 100% contamination. Distilled water alone and 0% contamination were used as checks. The experiments were arranged using completely randomized design replicated three times. The results showed that the Pb concentration in this contaminated soil was very high (16,130.00 mg/kg). Though, soil mixing with contaminated soil reduced the soil Pb concentration compared to control (100% contamination). none of the mixtures could support seed germination. The laboratory experiment revealed that leachates from different soil mixtures also inhibit seed germination. There was 100% reduction in germination percentage, Water uptake by the seeds was reduced compared to control. There was shrinkage in the seeds sown in all the contaminated leachates. The nitrogen and protein contents of Jatropha seeds raised with the 100% contaminated soil were reduced compared to control (leachates from uncontaminated soil). However, there was an increase in nitrogen and protein contents of maize seeds raised with 100% lead-contaminated leachate as compared to control. High lead concentration in soils contaminated by lead acid battery wastes inhibits seed germination and induced plasmolysis. 1 results 1
- Information and Communcation Technology 1 results 1
- Jatropha 1 results 1
- Language acquisition 1 results 1
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