HOW FAULTY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION LEADS TO UNDERDEVELOPMENT

By Ogechi Ekeanyanwu

The World Bank says over 200 million children in developing countries, including Nigeria, have no access to early childhood programmes.

According to Philipa Okonji, a Nigerian teacher, kids who do not partake in early childhood programmes are often sub-standard. What this means, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is that the children will not fully reach their development potential.

The World Bank says “there is growing evidence that investing in early childhood development is key to ensuring school readiness and alleviation poverty.”

In this interview, Okonji, a teacher with over 33 years’ experience, speaks on how the Nigerian early years’ curriculum got its wrong. Okonji is also the founder Havilah edu consult, an organisation that trains teachers on fun, effective and hands on methods of teaching.

MANY SCHOOLS STUCK IN THE OLD METHOD

Having taught for about 33 years and having worked in different schools, I discovered that the first set of schools I taught were a world apart from the last ones I worked in, in terms quality of teaching and learning.

A lot of schools around are still stuck in the old method of teaching. In the past and now, both sets of children achieved but in different ways.

The first set passed exams, having very good grades and the second group were able to express more and do more than passing exams because of the things that were involved in their teaching.

TEACHING AND LEARNING SHOULD BE FUN

Nigeria curriculum as it is structured now is faulty, there are even no monitoring policies to stick to what we should be doing. Also, there is not much research to improve on what we have been doing. So, it is almost the same thing that we did 33 years ago, that we are doing now. No one is monitoring the curriculum to know if it is achieving what it should and how it can be better for the overall development of the child and society. There is just not enough research going on. You can see that in the quality of output and in the expressiveness of the Nigerian child and their counterparts in developing countries. I once taught creative writing in a school and I was worried about the way the children could not express themselves properly. There are not enough policies to ensure actualization and then there is no monitoring.

In the British methods for instance, there are skills for each subject that a child should acquire. But with the Nigerian curriculum, there is no order to say this is what the child should have achieved.

The British skills are measurable, not by examining the pupils, not by standardised tests but by observing. The British curriculum has seven learning areas.

Knowledge and understanding the word, literacy and communication, language, mathematics, expressive art and design and physical, social and emotional development.

EARLY YEARS (2-5) DETERMINE LEARNING CAPACITY OF A CHILD

They are the foundation of future learning. They determine the learning and critical thinking capacity of the child. A child starts a piece of work till the child knows it. And to measure knowledge, rather that grading, the teacher makes a statement, tells where the child started from and where he is. There must be evidence of learning.

OLD (GRADING) SYSTEM ENCOURAGE ROTE

The old (grading) system encourages rote learning and memorization. It is high tension and the child is not relaxed enough to enjoy learning and is not interested in exploring other things. It does not encourage critical thinking as the teachers spoon feed the child and expect a regurgitation of what was taught.

In my early teaching years, I was teaching circles. When I was done, I asked the children to draw the circles, a boy drew a different kind of circle, a small circle, and I wanted him to give me the kind of circle that I had taught, but my inspector told me, this boy understands circles. He knows circles can be of different sizes. I didn’t think that way before.

Some of the disadvantages of the old grading system is it just says a child has done well. It does not say how. It is not evidential. You are not saying what the child did to get the good grades. That is not good enough. There needs to be evidence, where did the child start? What knowledge does the child require? and so on.

Rote largely contributes to the state of the nation. Pupils are just encouraged to give one phrase answer. They don’t know how to explain. They give straight jacket answers. They are not expressive.

TEACHERS NEED TO BE EMPOWERED

The teachers need training, exposure. But it is not enough to train, if you don’t practice, you will never really own them. The training is just to point you in the right direction. Practising is key for teachers. Countering challenges in learning and finding solutions is when mastery is achieved. Also there has to be institutional policies at all levels in Nigeria. When there are policies, monitoring is important. Do you go back to monitor?

There is resistance because of ignorance. Using the phonics and synthetic method of teaching as an example where emphasis is placed on the sound not on the letters. The letters are taught later. When people say does it matter, then I ask how easy was reading to you? Children in primary two are still battling with basic words. At five, a child who learn to read through phonics can read and write a lot of words effortlessly. This gives the child an edge as he exposed to more words and increases his vocabulary.

POLICY FOR HOMEWORK

The policy for homework is one minute for each year of the child. So for a 3-year-old child, homework should last for only about three minutes and should not be more than twice a week. Homework at this level, should also just be reinforcement of what was learnt in school and should be done without so much stress. Again, policy and monitoring of these policies are so important to ensure that the policies are implemented.

TIPS FOR CHOOSING A SCHOOL

• The environment: Is the environment clean, calm, bright and does it encourage learning?
• Have a chat with the staff, not just the school owner, to know the mindset of the staff and the even the diction. Mother tongue interference is a big put off for me.
• Find out if there are learning policies. You do want to go to a school that is policy-less, we cannot have policy-less, lawless school where there are no structures and anything goes. So, there are no offences and consequences.
• Find out about implementation and monitoring of the policies.
• Find out the educational background of the school owner and the teachers as well.

Culled from: cable.ng