INTRODUCTION
Education that is institutionalized, intentional and
planned through public organizations and recognized private bodies and, in
their totality, make up the formal education system of a country. Formal
education programmes are thus recognized as such by the relevant national
educational authorities or equivalent, e.g. any other institution in
co-operation with the national or sub-national educational authorities. Formal
education consists mostly of initial education. Vocational education, special
needs education and some parts of adult education are often recognized as being
part of the formal education system.
Formal learning refers to what takes place in the
education and training system of a country. It is official, structured,
organised by public organisations or recognised private institutions and results
with formal certification and formal level of qualification which is recognised
by relevant national educational authorities. Formal education is usually
organised as full – time education and is organised as a continuous process
with defined stages. Formal education encompasses primary, lower and upper
secondary education, higher and university education that culminate in the
achievement of a degree or a professional qualification or diploma or a
recognised certification as well as adult education programmes.
TRACE THE HISTORY OF
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORMAL EDUCATION IN NIGERIA AND COMPARE ITS DEVELOPMENT WITH
ANY COUNTRY IN SUB-SAHARA AFRICA
History of Education
in Nigeria
Education as we have rightly defined, it can be in three
forms, we have the formal education, we have the semi-formal education, and we
have the informal education, all of these started from informal education to
the formal education.
The history of education in Nigeria could be traced down
to the early days before the colonization of Nigeria by the British Colonial
Master. Our for-fathers has been practicing a form of the educational system
which is known as the informal education, this type of education does not need
a skilled facilitator, it is usually done by observation, instruction and it is
types of education that is a hands-on type of education. The father is
responsible for the male education, the male child will be trained on how to
farm, basic principle and responsibilities of men are being passed across to
the male child through his father, the female child is directly trained by her
mother, she will be taught how to sweep, how to cook, how to greet the elderly
ones and other responsibility of women in the societies. Generally, the king
and the societal leader will teach everyone staying a particular location the
basic rules of the society, what the dos and don’ts are will be listed and will
be passed across to the younger generations, the issue of Taboo was rampant in
Nigeria as at then which is one of the ways the younger generation are
initiated into the society. Prior to the arrival of western education in
Nigeria, education has been informal majorly from the family and immediate
society, where children are taught about culture, social activities, and work.
These educational activities made up for the majority of what the upcoming ones
learn. The entrance of the Europeans into Nigeria, brought along European
western Education in the 1840s. In the western part of the country, western
education was encouraged by the Missionaries. The Northern part of Nigeria,
majorly populated by Muslims, western education was prohibited giving way to an
Islamic school that focused primarily on Islamic education. Prior to Nigeria’s
Independence, Only two Established Post Secondary Institution were available,
Yaba Higher College (Now Yaba College of Technology founded in 1934) and the
University of Ibadan, founded in 1948. Post Independence brought about the
major development of education in Nigeria, with an increase in the number of
primary, secondary schools, teachers college and Polytechnics and Universities.
The cost of Tertiary education is constantly on the increase and the
educational system is in need of improvement and innovation to move it forward
from the current state.
History of Formal
Education
As colonization of Nigeria began in the Early 19s,
Nigerian were trained on basic hand work, such as Blacksmith, Carpentering,
Brick layering, and others, as these began, it open ways for Semi-informal
education which is more formalized than the Informal form of education, the men
are trained on handworks while the female counterparts were trained on
crafting, all of these were the basic form of education that was rampant in the
early 19s, but as Missionaries from other developed countries began to migrate
to Nigeria to spread the Gospel, Churches were built, schools were attached to
the churches so as to teach Nigerians on how to read and write, the primary aim
of the schools was to train Nigerians who were converted on how to read and
write, they will be able to read the bible and they will understand for
themselves, this continues for long not until 1980 when the first educational
ordinances was passed into law by Nigeria government, and education were fully
financed by the federal Government, and ever since then, various educational
bodies were established to see to full supervision of education, educational
qualities were tested and were been supervised by the established institutions,
ever since then, there has been paradigm shift from what education used to look
like to a new era of education, the traditional form of education see to make
man functional in their given societies while the modern form of education aims
to improve man ways of living by doing research on a better way to handle every
sector in the country. Ever since advanced in the educational system in
Nigeria, there has been noticeable growth in terms of development and ways
things are been done before colonization.
Development of Education in Nigeria
- Importance of
education In Nigeria
The importance of education cannot be overemphasized, for
any nation to develop, the need for a standard form of educational it’s
imperative so here are the benefits of Education
Quicken Development: education have been a tool in most advanced countries to
sharpen and fasten the rate of development in the countries, without education
research would have been difficult, conservation of old knowledge would not get
to a younger generation, so education plays a vital role in the development of
any country.
Improve Standard of
Living: the usual practices that
has being affection the standard of living of most citizens in a particular
country are disarm by modern idea and knowledge, innovations are at higher
rate, tools that could help man overcome difficult tasked were invented on
daily bases, technology keep improving to help man sustain and live well.
System of Education in Nigeria
Nigeria is blessed with a lot of ethnic groups; Yoruba,
Hausa, and Igbo being the most recognized the system of education in Nigeria
(Primary) is called Universal Basic Education (UBE) which is a replacement of
the Universal Primary Education (UPE) in order to improve the first nine years
of schooling. Which include the 6 years primary education and the formal
education system in Nigeria includes: 6 years of primary schooling 3 years of
junior secondary schooling 3 years of senior secondary schooling, and 4 years
of university education, finally directing toward a bachelor’s level degree in
the majority of the subjects. The annual term of school in Nigeria is ten
months, and is sectioned into three ten- to twelve-week periods, each at the
pre-primary, primary, junior and senior secondary stages.
Conclusion
Formal learning is education normally delivered by trained teachers
in a systematic intentional way within a school, higher education or university.
It is one of three forms of learning as defined by the OECD, the
others being informal learning, which typically takes place naturally as
part of some other activity, and non-formal learning, which includes
everything else, such as sports instruction provided by non-trained educators
without a formal curriculum.
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