Citizenship
is a statutory National Curriculum subject in state maintained
secondary schools and a non-statutory subject with a national framework in
primary schools in England.
What
is citizenship education?
Citizenship
involves people acting together to address issues of common concern to maintain
our democratic culture and to improve society. To achieve this goal,
Citizenship education teaches knowledge, understanding about politics, the law
and the economy and skills to participate effectively and responsibly in public
and democratic life.
Through citizenship
education, students:
- explore questions about democracy,
justice, inequality, how we are governed and organized;
- learn to
work together to create solutions that try to address challenges
facing neighborhoods and wider communities;
- Develop political
literacy
to make a positive contribution to society as informed and responsible
citizens.
Some
things you should know about citizenship education…
- Citizenship is the
only subject in the national curriculum that teaches about the way
democracy, politics, the economy and the law work.
- Half a million young
people have achieved a GCSE or A level qualification in citizenship to
date since 2002.
- Young people have
initiated over 100,000 active citizenship projects in their communities
since the GCSE was introduced.
- Citizenship is not
about indoctrination: teachers and local authorities are required by the
Education Act 1996 to make sure that students are presented with different
points of views so that they can make up their own minds.
- Citizenship education
is also not only a Labour project: it was introduced as a cross-curricular
theme by a Conservative government in 1990.
- It’s been in the
national curriculum in secondary schools in England since 2002.
- It was a long time
coming – politicians and educators alike had been lobbying for citizenship
to be a fundamental part of education for 100 years.
GOOD OF
CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION
A consideration of the issues
surrounding the teaching of controversial issues serves only to underline the
importance of good citizenship education from an early age.
If children become accustomed to
discussing their differences in a rational way in the primary years, they are
more likely to accept it as normal in their adolescence.
Citizenship education helps to
equip young people to deal with situations of conflict and controversy
knowledgeably and tolerantly. It helps to equip them to understand the
consequences of their actions, and those of the adults around them.
Pupils learn how to recognize
bias, evaluate argument, weigh evidence, look for alternative interpretations,
viewpoints and sources of evidence; above all to give good reasons for the
things they say and do, and to expect good reasons to be given by others.
REASONS
FOR TEACHING CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
The purposes of citizenship education
are many and varied. They include socializing children against juvenile
delinquency, disrespect for elders and all sharp practices that often
metamorphose into full-blown crimes. Our youths have acquired international
notoriety in such crimes as drug trafficking and addiction, child trafficking,
swindling and advance free fraud. For the home-based, the contemporary social
ills that plague the nation include: armed robbery, indolence, truancy, smuggling,
dishonesty, sharp-practices, and most recently and dangerously kidnapping and
suicide bombing. Those in higher institutions pride themselves in cultism,
robbery, violence, gross indiscipline, examination mal-practice and campus
unrests. There has been public out cry over unemployment against the
government, but it has been observed that those who have gained one employment
or the other demonstrate unprecedented truancy and ingratitude towards their government
employers. The magnitude of dishonesty, embezzlement of public funds, looting government
treasuries, diverting public funds and materials to private use, bribery and corruption
they practise is inexplicable. Ndukwe (2013) cried out:
Two distinct challenges are insidiously
eating away at whatevergains Nigeria has made in the economic arena as well as
its socio-cultural stage since pursuing a pro-democratic agenda. What are they?
Insecurity and Inconsistent power supply. Lawlessness is a plague that steals the
light of a nation. A lawless State is rife with insecurity and its citizens are
slaves to such order. Nigeria is witnessing analarming trend in lawlessness and
insecurity. There is hardly any breaking news in the mainstream media without
an account of some form of security challenges, acts of violence,
ethno-centered strife or religious fuelled clashes. It is either Boko Haram in
the Northern corridor or Kidnapping in the South-South and South East
geopolitical zone. (The National Question, Monday n20 – 23 May, 2013, p.1). There
is still mutual distrust among the different ethnicities in Nigeria against
each other. These and other vices have for decades ravaged our nation due to
very poor socialization or complete ignorant of citizenship education. The
purpose of education for citizenship is to create sufficient awareness,
sensitize both the old and the young to imbibe the spirit of self-reliance,
good citizenship, respect for our national emblems and ethics and the desire to
build a strong and reliable nation. For our purpose, this paper restricts our
discussion to the under-mentioned areas, since they highlight the basic aspects
of citizenship education.