Investigation of the Use of Educational Television in Teaching Social Studies in Primary Schools in Ondo State

Educational television, through National Educational Television and State Broadcasting Corporations, has been a longstanding but underutilised supplementary instructional resource in Nigerian primary education, and its actual deployment in Social Studies teaching merits current assessment. This study investigated the use and effectiveness of educational television as a teaching aid for Social Studies in primary schools in Akure North and Ondo LGAs of Ondo State, South West Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was employed, with questionnaires administered to 130 primary school teachers and observation visits conducted at 20 schools. The questionnaire assessed availability of televisions in schools, frequency of ETV programme use, teacher satisfaction with content relevance, and perceived impact on pupil learning. Results showed that functional television sets were present in only 26.2 percent of surveyed schools. Among teachers with access to television, only 38.5 percent used ETV programmes in the preceding term. Content relevance of available programmes to the primary curriculum was rated positively by only 44.6 percent of users. Scheduling conflicts between broadcast times and school timetables were reported by 58.5 percent of potential ETV users. The study concludes that educational television is significantly underutilised as a Social Studies teaching resource in Ondo State primary schools. Recommendations include ETV equipment provision, collaboration with Ondo State Broadcasting Service for curriculum-aligned content, and digital ETV archives accessible offline through USB or SD card delivery.

Keywords: educational television, Social Studies teaching, primary school, Ondo State, instructional media