CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The role of science and technology in the development of a nation is never in dispute. According to Jegede (1983) the current development in science and technology has greatly affected human beings and to be ignorant of these developments is to live in an empty, meaningless and probably unreal life.

The technological development of any nation lies on its emphasis on sciences especially chemistry. This is evidenced in the admission ratio of 60:40 of the science and science-related courses to the Arts and Humanities into Nigerian Federal and State universities. In an effort to achieve national developmental needs, the Federal Government of Nigeria made special provisions and incentives through the provision of instructional materials, laboratory equipments, training and retraining of teachers, provision of research grants and adoption of information and communication technology (ICT). (Federal Ministry of Education, 2008).

In addition to these provisions, the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Educational Tax Fund (ETF) intervention project supplied labless science equipments and instructional materials to about six hundred and thirty-three secondary schools all over the country in 2008 (Federal Ministry of Education, 2008). The aim was to reduce or eradicate the problems encountered by the teachers as a result of the absence or dearth of laboratory equipments and instructional materials in schools. However, inspite of these efforts by the Federal Government, students performance is still very poor in the sciences particularly chemistry.

Chemistry is the branch of science which deals with how substances are made up, how the atoms of elements combine or break up and how atoms and compounds react under different conditions. Pure chemistry is more concerned with academic development of chemistry, extending the frontiers of chemical knowledge through laboratory research, developing improved methods of imparting chemical knowledge and experimenting on alternative methods of producing desired results. A pure chemist is not interested in commercializing the results of his experiments. Industrial or applied chemistry as the name implies translates the laboratory findings of the pure chemist into commercial products. For example, in the laboratory the pure chemist will boil a small quantity of oil and soda to produce a small amount of soap. He is interested not in selling this quantity but in studying its properties – the colour, the odour, the amount of lather it can produce etc. The industrial chemist will make use of these findings of the pure chemist but has to design ways and means of producing the soap on a very large scale, and cheaply too.

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2. 2. As a source for additional understanding of the subject.
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