Abstract
Nigeria faces a dual burden of
communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Physical Education (PE)
teachers are underutilized as frontline agents for school-based disease
prevention. The dual mandate policy upgrading Colleges of Education (COEs) to award
both Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) and Bachelor of Education (B.Ed)
degrees provides an opportunity to reposition PE teacher training. This review
examines how current dual mandate PE curricula in Nigerian FCE’s address
disease prevention through exercise, identifies gaps, and proposes integration
models. This study adopted a descriptive document analysis design with a
concurrent embedded mixed-methods approach. Quantitative content analysis was
used to count credit units, hours, and learning outcomes related to disease
prevention and exercise prescription of the NCCE Minimum Standards for PE, TRCN
professional standards and syllabi from six federal COEs. Qualitative thematic
analysis was used to interpret the depth, language, and pedagogical intent of
those curricular elements. This combination is justified because numbers alone
cannot capture whether “exercise physiology” means sports performance or
clinical prevention. The population for this study consists of all official
curriculum documents governing PE teacher training in Nigerian COEs under the
dual mandate and a total of 8 documents were purposively selected as sample
which includes NCCE Minimum Standards, COE B.Ed PE curricula, and RCN Standards
document. Current curricula emphasize sports skills and competition with <5%
content on exercise for health. Disease prevention is limited to general
“health education”. This study finds out that no modules exist on exercise
prescription, screening, or referral for NCD risk. Dual mandate reform has
changed qualification level but not content relevance. Therefore, this study
recommended that a therapeutic exercise track is needed to align PE teacher
training with Nigeria’s public health priorities.
DOI: https://www.doi.10.57233/djfafais.2026.v22i01.025
author/Rilwanu, A. and Tukur, M. J.
journal/Degel 22(1) | October 2026 |
