I have been prompted to briefly comment on the education in this country following a video clip I watched on WhatsApp. In it, Chinese children were shown engaged in what could be called extracurricular activities. They were doing the activities with all concentration and gusto that they could muster. I believe that with time, those children will become masters of different vocations that would contribute economically to themselves and perhaps to their country too.
Although the Nigerian educationists and other stakeholders in education in the country realised that there was a need for a shift in the pre-independence educational policy in the country to a new post-independence one to reflect our needs and aspirations, the educational policy did not witness the quantum leap I thought that it should. When it does, vocational education wherein students will acquire skills in school should be included in the school curriculum early enough i.e. from the primary school and it should be accorded importance just as with arts and science subjects. It should be part of what students should learn in the tertiary institutions too.
We are in a changing world where skills are becoming increasingly important. The educationists in this country would agree as proposed by John Dewey and Charles Peirce, American philosophers and proponents of pragmatism in education, that students should learn skills as they would be useful to them at some point in their lifetime.
What students learn in school should become practical outside the walls of the schools. If the Western Europeans can envision this, how much more the Chinese that are an older civilization? This is why I was not surprised by the video clip I watched. It is high time Nigeria too reviewed our school curriculum; else we will continue to be left behind in almost all spheres of life.
Abbas Liman can be reached via [email protected]
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