I. Introduction igeria like, other countries of the world, recognizes education as the major instrument for effecting national development. It is regarded as a catalyst and a means of achieving growth and development because the socio-economic, political, and technological advancement of any nation depends greatly on its educational system. It is recognized as an instrument par excellence for achieving growth, progress, and national development (FRN, 2013). This therefore, underscores the value being placed on the quality and standards which encompass quality learning, resources inputs, instructional process, effective management, monitoring, and evaluation as well as human resources capacity development in Nigerian Colleges of Education.

Human resources are the people who make up the workforce of an organization, the human resources (Staff) of any college of education are expected to bring about the competitive difference since the success or failure of an educational organ is dependent on the quality of these resources. Human resources are the competitive advantage which any college of education may have. This is because while equipment, infrastructure, methods of production, packaging and distribution strategies could all be copied by other competitive colleges of education, the innate qualities which includes; innovativeness, knowledge, abilities and skills of the human resources (staff) cannot be easily copied. Studies on human capital development revealed that; it is the human resources of a nation and not its capital or natural resources that ultimately determine the pace of its economic and social development (Broadwell, 2006;Amadi, 2008;Louise, 2008;).

As important as the human resosurce are to every tertiary education, merely recruiting and selecting high-potential workforce does not guarantee that they will perform their duties effectively. Staff who do not know what to do or how to do it cannot perform effectively even if they want to (Amadi, 2008). Therefore, it is the responsibility of the human resource management to ensure that the staff knows what to do and how to do it. This can only be possible through staff development programmes.

Staff development programmes are the various means by which all the categories of staff working in a School are encouraged to improve their capabilities and be more effective in their areas of assignment. According to Obioma (2012), staff development is an organizational effort aimed at helping an employee to acquire basic skills required for the efficient execution of the activities or functions for which he/she is hired. Nwachukwu (2009) adds that staff development deals with the activities undertaken to expose an employee to perform additional duties and assume positions of importance in the organizational hierarchy. Staff development programmes can also be referred to as the processes and activities through which every educational institution develop, enhances, improves the skills, competencies and overall performance of its employees (Abu, 2012). Staff development is a process that attempts to provide employees with information, skills, and understanding of the school and its goals (Ivancevich, 2010). It also aids an employee to continue to make the necessary positive contribution to the success of employees' school in terms of his/her performance on the job. Lawal (2004) observes that staff development programmes are important aspects of the development process that deal with the art of acquiring skills in areas that are relevant to their profession.

The objectives of staff development programmes are to ensure the promotion of professional growth, improve pedagogical skills, keep teachers abreast of new knowledge, meet particular needs such as curriculum development and orientation, leadership responsibility, new teachers to adjust to teaching field, promote mutual respect among staff and recognizes the need for modern teaching methods (Madumere-Obike, 2007). Teachers constitute an important factor in the implementation of the curriculum. The quality of teachers is known to be a key predictor of student's performance. Teaching as a profession demands continuous development of knowledge and ability through training programmes they are teaching. Such training programmes include in-service, conference, workshop, seminars, and mentoring staff. Mohammed (2006) noted that many people after graduation have little or no opportunity for re-training to develop themselves adequately to meet the demands of their job.

Effective job performance on the part of the staff is essential for the success of the organization. Such performance, to a large extent, will depend on their knowledge skills, and confidence in originating ideas as to how best to carry out the task of the job. Hence, the need for staff development programmes which should aim at improving the effectiveness of individuals at work and for greater responsibilities. In most tertiary education in Nigeria, there may bean absence of opportunities to update their knowledge and skills by attending seminars, workshops and, conferences that will subsequently enhance their knowledge and skills. In order to respond to these trends, the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2013) in the National Policy on Education made provision for development of employees by stating that teacher education shall continue to take cognizance of the changes in methodology and in the curriculum, and that in-service training, workshops, conferences, symposia for teachers and non-teaching staff shall be regulated.

The importance and the need for every staff to be constantly renewed, upgraded and updated in his or her knowledge to be refreshed and to keep abreast of the rapid changing society through staff development programmes. According to Gani (2013), the functions of academic and non-academic staff in colleges of education are not only multiple but also continuously changing in modern societies. This suggests the need for this category of staff to continuously undertake relevant development programmes. The competency of the management staff is usually observed in their interactions with other staff, their leadership roles, assessment of other staff, dealing with disciplinary issues, as well as other college activities. Likewise, academic staff of the institutions, undertake the function of teaching and assessing the students among others. The author, further stresses that these categories of staff can be developed through orientation, induction, inservice training, conferences, seminars, workshops, and further educational studies, particularly in educational management and public administration. These development programmes are expected to improve upon the leadership skills and human relation abilities of staff in colleges of education. Orientation is absolutely necessary for new employees in any organization (Akpakwu, 2013).

Orientation is an introductory stage in the process of new employee assimilation and a part of his or her continuous socialization process in the college. According to Mathias in Akpakwu (2013), orientation is the planned introduction of new employees to their jobs, their co-workers and the culture of the organization. Akpakwu posits that orientation provides new staff with the basic background required to perform their jobs satisfactorily, such as information on the rules, culture, tradition, objectives, and facilities of the educational organization. Also, orientation provides a new staff of the college with gain employee commitment, reduces his/her anxiety, helps him or her understanding the college expectation and convey what he or she can expect from the job and school, it is commonly followed by induction training tailored to specific job positions.

Armstrong in, Salau, Falola and, Akindode (2014), explains that induction provides the opportunity to shape work related attitudes and enhance school commitment. Through the induction new employee Mentorship is the experience of a skilled and competent employee through a working relationship between less experienced staff and a very experienced one. The use of proper guidance is explored to put the new staff on the right course of the conduct, and ways to carry out responsibilities give to him/her (Abubakar, 2009). Employees need to be updated through inservice training and development to acquire competencies they did not have at the time of appointment. All the staff above development programmes and activities are aimed at improving staff job performance in the school.

On the other hand, staff job performance is a criterion that relates to organizational outcomes and success. Katz in Olaniyan and Lucas (2008), defines job performance as goal accomplishment. It is the process of reaching an end-that is, organizational goals. Job performance is, therefore the qualitative and, quantitative measure of activities, duties and operations which a job holder achieves efficiently and effectively within a defined time limit. It could be an act of accomplishing or executing a given task (Robert & Tim, 2006). It could also be described as the ability to combine the right behavior skillfully towards the achievement of the school goals and objectives (Olaniyan & Lucas, 2008).

The success with which an educational institution survives depends largely on the ability and expertise of human resources who operate both at the managerial and teaching levels of operation. Such ability and expertise usually stem from the qualitative knowledge possessed and standard training received.

Staff job performance has been a great concern to stakeholders in education such as the government, external examination bodies, parents, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), among others in recent times in Nigeria, given the deteriorating academic performance of students' performance (Ekpoh, 2007). Parents, students, government and employees have expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of teaching and learning that takes place in the schools in spite of improved academic and professional qualification of employees and huge government investment in education, colleges of education system seems to have failed to produce people who can contribute to solving the problems of the society. States in North Eastern Nigeria have made substantial moves to improve employees' work performance through such measures as it may increase staff participation in developmental programmes but to no avail. This, therefore, implies that staff development practices are effective motivational strategies for skill and knowledge acquisition for enhanced staff job performance. The researcher observed that many Colleges of Education that organizes staff training programmes in the country do have a wrong nomenclature that staff development programmes require placing few people with high potentials in a training programme while ignoring the rest of staff. It is, of course, difficult to identify the potential of prospective staff, but to rely on a few trainees is also risky. It is even much riskier when the trainees are selected based on friendship or kinship with executives without regards to capabilities. Hence, it has been observed by the researcher that lack of efficient and skillful staff could be the reason behind this sordid performance. This study therefore, investigated the influence of staff development programmes on staff job performance in Colleges of Education in North Eastern Nigeria.

The The sample size for the study comprises 384 staff. This size was determined using Taro Yamen Sample size formulae. Multistage sampling was used to select the sample at different stages. First, purposive sampling was used to select four States, which are Taraba, Adamawa, Yobe and Gombe, while simple random sampling was used to select the number of colleges of education from the four states, three federal colleges and six state-owned colleges of education was selected. Proportionate Stratified random sampling technique was adopted in selecting the number of staff from each College of Education in this order: Federal College of Education, Yola (41), Federal College of Education, Gombe (37), Federal College of Education, Yobe (42), College of Education, Zing (32), College of Education, Hong (38), College of Education, Azara (46), College of Education, Gashua (43), College of Education, Billiri (58), and College of Education, Bama (47), respectively. This was done to ensure that, relative proportion of the respondents in the colleges involved in the study were exactly its relative contribution in the sample.

A self-structured questionnaire titled ''Staff Development Programmes and Staff Job Performance Questionnaire'' (SDPSJPQ) was constructed by the researcher for data collection. The questionnaire is divided into two sections, A and B. Section A contained information on the personal data of the respondents, while Section B was divided into two clusters, to solicit information on the variables of the study. Each cluster has five items, respectively. Cluster 1 contained items 1-5 that bordered on the influence of orientation on staff job performance, while cluster2 contained items 6-10 on the influence of mentoring on staff job performance. On the whole, the questionnaire has10-items structured on a four-point rating scale with response modes of Very High Influence (VHI)=4, High Influence(HI)=3, Low Influence (LI)=2 and No Influence (NI)=1. This scale was chosen because the flexibility of the scale renders it appropriate for measuring the items of the variables of the study.

To ensure the validity of the instrument, the researcher presented the questionnaire for face and content validation to one expert in Mathematics Education, two experts from Educational Management, all from Benue State University, Makurdi. One expert was also given from Educational Administration and Planning from the University of Agriculture, Makurdi. These experts examined each of the items on the instruments and made comments on their suitability or ambiguity, with a view to correct any mistake. For instance, unclear statement, questions with wrongly conceived ideas and missing information, as well as other observed errors were pointed out by the experts.

Their comments, suggestions, and corrections were effected on the instrument.

To establish the reliability of the instrument, the questionnaire was administered to 30 respondents in Colleges of Education in Benue State (College of Education, Oju, and College of Education, Katsina-Ala) which were not part of the study but had characteristics that are similar to those of the study sample. Cronbach's Alpha was used to determine the internal consistency of items. Cronbach's Alpha is a measure of internal consistency that shows how closely related a set of items are as a group. The reliability coefficient obtained from the clusters were; cluster 1 = 0.76and cluster 2= 0.78, The overall result of the reliability analysis yielded an alpha co-efficient of 0.77, and its positive sign reveals that the instrument is reliable for the study.

Data were collected by personal administration of instrument to respondents by the researcher and with the aid of nine research assistants. The researcher engaged nine (9) research assistants who were a staff of the colleges, and they assisted in administering the questionnaire in the sampled colleges. On collection of the completed instrument, the assistants were required to send them back to the researcher. Where there were hitches, the assistants were advised to notify the researcher for possible solutions. A total of 384 copies of the questionnaire were administered, and all were returned for data analysis.

The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics of simple percentages, Mean and Standard Deviation were used to answer research questions. The decision was based on the real limit of numbers. Hence a mean response score of 3.50-4.00 was considered Very High Influence (VHI), 2.50-3.49 High Influence (HI), 1.50-2.49 Low Influence (LI), while 0.50-1.49 was considered as No Influence (NI). While a Chi-square test of significance was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The decision rule for the rejection or acceptance of each hypothesis was based on the set value of 0.05, where the P-value was equal to or greater than the set value of 0.05(P>0.05) the hypothesis was accepted but was rejected where the P-value was less than the set value of 0.05(P<0.05).

This section presents the analysis of data and discussion of findings. Presentation of data was carried out in two stages. The first stage covered the descriptive aspect involving mean and standard deviation scores while the second stage covered the testing of hypotheses earlier postulated in the study using chisquare statistics at 0.05 level of significance. Discussions of the findings were presented at the end of the analysis. Table 1 revealed that all the items have means and S.D ranges between 3.72-3.87 and 0.36-0.56 with a grand mean of 3.78 and S.D of 0.46, this result shows that orientation has very high influence on staff job performance in Colleges of Education in North Eastern Nigeria.

To what extent does mentoring influence staff job performance in Colleges of Education?

The discussion of findings of this study is organized in line with the research questions and hypotheses which guided the study Finding on table three (hypothesis 1) revealed that orientation has a significant influence on staff job performance in Colleges of Education in North Eastern Nigeria. This result is in consonance with the findings of Neelam, Israr, Shahid and Mohammad (2014) who found that orientation has a significant impact on employees' job performance. It further revealed that employee oriented companies perform better than companies that are less employee oriented. The study also agrees with Salau, Falola and Akinbode (2014) who found out that induction significantly influences staff attitude and behavior towards retention and effectiveness in organizations. While Simatwa (2010) found out that staff, who were inducted had better team work and time management. These findings agree with the findings of the present study which showed that beginning teachers who were inducted had better knowledge of school policies; how to adapt rapidly in new work environment, classroom management; operation of team work and time management Finding on table four (hypothesis 2) revealed that mentoring has a significant influence on staff job performance in Colleges of Education in North Eastern Nigeria. The finding supports an earlier study by Kalash (2014) who found out that mentoring has a significant effect on teachers' effectiveness in secondary schools. Furthermore, Kalash findings revealed that mentoring support programs improve the performance and retention of beginning staff, that is, to both enhance and prevent the loss of human capital, with the ultimate aim of improving the growth and learning of students. The result of this study may be due to practice reservoir by the management whereby managers and staff use collective bargaining in resolving their differences.

Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that if appropriate staff development programs are put in place, the performance of staff of Colleges of Education in the study area would be more efficient and effective. This would lead to enhanced performance and productivity as it would boost the educational outcomes in the study area.

Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations were made: 1. Management of each College of Education should take adequate measures to ensure the staff is given proper orientation services, to improve their performance at all times. Such measures should include planning and funding adequately at each occasion the need arises.

Education should see themselves more as mentors to the staff of these colleges by providing guidance and counseling services, and offering professional advice to staff, as this would make them not deviate from the acceptable standard of the job performance expected.