Gender and Occupational Tenure as Correlates of In-Service English Language Teachers’ Interest in their Professional Development in Selected Nigerian Schools

No educational system can rise above the quality of its teaching force. Teacherslacking in enthusiasm for professional development cannot be expected toperform their duties satisfactorily in the face of the myriad of challenges ofand rapid changes in the characteristics of the 21st Century students. Amongthe factors found in literature to influence language teachers’ interest in theirprofessions are gender and occupational tenure. This study thereforeinvestigated the relationship between each of the two selected variables(gender and occupational tenure) and the interest of the English Languageteachers in Ibadan metropolis in pursuing professional development. A multistage sampling procedure was employed to get a total of one hundred andthirty-three teachers served with copies of a fifteen-item questionnaire titledTeachers’ Perception of Teaching adapted from Faniran and Olatunji2011. Frequency Counts, percentages and chi-square statistical tools wereemployed to analyse the data collected in testing the two null hypothesesformulated. Findings from this study have shown that though more of the maleEnglish Language teachers than their female counterparts have higher degrees,the former are less enthusiastic about professional development. Also, most ofthe teachers lose more interest in their jobs as they grew older in the profession