Striking A Balance In The Teaching-Learning Bar In Nigeria
The education standard in Nigeria is so tiresome, the learning workload for children in Nigeria seems to be high. Children spend upwards of seven hours in school. After normal school hours, they start lessons. Most get home around 6.00pm, worn out and still have homework to do before going to bed.
They wake up early the next day and the cycle continues. Weekends and holidays are not left out so children have no time to rest, play and be children. Despite all these, the standards are raised high and still many perform woefully in external examinations
Striking The Balance In the Educational system
Finland, a Northern European nation, is adjudged the best in the world educationally and they do the exact opposite of what obtains in Nigeria.
In a documentary on Finnish educational system, American documentary filmmaker, Michael Moore, said: “Children spend comparatively little time at school, don’t get homework and yet receive one of the best educations in the world.” In this report, Vanguard Newspaper looked at what makes Finland’s education system tick and what Nigeria can learn from it.
Finland’s former Minister of Education, Ms. Krista Kiuru said: “They do not have homework! We reduced the homework we give to students. They should have more time to be youngsters, to enjoy life.” Playing is part of education: Kiura told Wise Education Conference in Qatar in 2014 that “the most important thing in early childhood education is making sure kids have enough time to play. Children do not play to learn, they learn while playing.
Mrs Okungbowa believes that the after-school classes or holiday lesson is not the problem but what is done in after-school. “The typical Nigerian school needs to understand that play is a framework for learning. It doesn’t always have to be about learning Math or other subjects.
After-school classes can be geared towards raising a total child. Sporting activities, music, arts, structured and free play can be the thrust of our after-school programs. “The objective of homework is to reinforce what was taught at school; therefore it need not be an overload on the child. Just some few practice questions will suffice.
Mrs Umolu- In Nigeria, children are in school for upwards of seven hours and then there is after-school, holiday and weekend lessons, leaving them little or no time to rest, play and be children. Parents are partly to blame because they want to rush their kids into secondary school at age 8 and 9 and so, the schools feel under pressure to push them. Such nonsense! It is not just too much workload on the kids, but it is the type of workload
In Nigeria, we are saddled with what is in essence still the colonial English system. Currently in Britain, the politicians are trying to interfere in schools to make them more rigid and formal but they are being countered by a well trained and committed force of teachers. The trouble is that too many people believe that by pushing children harder, they will get better results, and education is becoming highly competitive. It’s like the arms race. And it’s just as counterproductive.
Curled from the Vanguard newspaper
