Always Learn!

It is a wellknown fact that women in India are the victims of various multi dimensional problems and also the most vulnerable group because of the social structure and at present scenario there is an urgent need for concrete efforts. Indian women has been one of the major impediments in the way of womens empowerments. Illiteracy and semi- Illiteracy keep women in perpetual state of assettleness. Even for effective implementation of innumerable development programmes sponsored by the government and non-government sector the educated women in the work force are a must.

India has a high number of highly disciplined educated and professionally competent pool of women and has a law of universal primary education, if focus is given to higher education especially of women will surely give India a bright future. An educational institution has to face global competitions and inter national collaborations.

Education should look into physical, mental, intellectual, emotional spiritual values for growth and development. Though the primary stakeholders are teachers and students, there is an influence on them from the secondary stakeholders they are parents, society, management, government, employers etc

Three important aspects in the quality enhancement of education for women is

1. Confirm to requirements

2. Requirements keep on increasing

3. Quality enhancement is continuous

The education should focus to raise consciousness, motivate, articulate and make women self-reliant to participate. For effective educational work, the teacher and learner should be involved in policy planning and effective execution of development. Gender blindness of most of the decision-making institutions and professional bodies demand intervention, without adequate teaching material has caused lot of inconveniences to teachers and students.

Teachers accompanying learners in their growth and development:

The art and science of teaching should include a worldview and vision of the ideal human person to be educated. The teacher’s primary role to facilitate the growing relationship of the learner to truth, particularly in the matter of the subject being studied. The teacher creates the conditions, lays the foundations and provides the opportunities for the continual interplay of the students’ experience, reflection and action to occur.

A challenge to a teacher is to formulate questions that will broaden students’ awareness and impel them to consider view –points of others. To make teaching learner centered the learning process must include a pre-learning element, that of context, and a post learning element, that of evaluation. Personal knowledge and care of the student by the teacher is equally important as it is the hallmark of good education. A conducive environment and commitment to values, from the learner’s point of view- readiness to learn and readiness to grow should be taken into consideration.

Learning experience should be the development of the more complex learning skills of understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Reflection is the process where by the learner makes he learning experiences her own, gets the meaning of the learning experience for self and for others. A thoughtful reconsideration of some subject matter, experience, idea, purpose reaction, in order to grasp its significance more fully is essential.

If learning were to stop at experience, it would not be integral for it would lack the component of reflection where in the learner are impelled to consider the human meaning and significance of what they study and to integrate that meaning as responsible learners who grow as persons of competence, conscience and compassion.

The term action refers to internal human growth based upon experience that has been reflected upon as well as its manifestation externally. Involving interiorized choices and choices externally manifested. The student’s attitude, priorities, commitments, habits, values, ideals, internal human growth flowing out into action for others is most essential.

Periodic evaluation of a student’s growth in attitudes, priorities and actions consistent with being a person for others is essential.

Thus to conclude the basic elements of cooperative learning are:

·        Positive interdependence

·        Face to face interaction

·        Individual accountability

·        Interpersonal and small group skills

·        Group processing

EDUCATION in Africa has a history reaching back many centuries. Certainly the achievements of the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Ethiopia are well known. Then, early in the first millennium of the Common Era, the Moors and other peoples on the northern fringe of Africa made notable contributions to world education and culture. And during the past 1,000 years the Saharan and sub-Saharan peoples had several centers of learning—Timbuktu, Agadez, Gao, Katsina and Borno, where books written in Arabic were in great demand.

More than 800 years ago at Timbuktu, in Mali, colleges provided advanced education. Katsina, in northern Nigeria, has been a center of learning since before the sixteenth century. It was there that, about 200 years ago, Muhammed ibn Muhammed became noted as a specialist in numerology.

The aforementioned cities were dominated by Moslem culture, and mosques were the centers of learning. However, the cost of learning under the tutorship of the mallams was very high and so few persons could afford it. The educated minority exercised tremendous influence, and were the key administrators, lawyers and clerks. But the majority remained illiterate.

In the non-Moslem, sub-Saharan cultures, education was largely nonliterate, by oral instruction rather than by use of reading material. Educational systems varied from tribe to tribe, and there were different degrees and levels of training, depending on the social and cultural development of a particular tribe. The training covered a fairly wide range, with specialized instruction at different age levels. Each educational system had specific forms of preparation for the roles of individuals in society. A look at the system of education among the Yorubas in precolonial Nigeria illustrates this.

The Yoruba System

Among the Yorubas, training in obedience, etiquette, speech and counting came early in the child’s life and was given within the family circle. Children quickly learned to express themselves in their language. Progressively, they mastered the proverbs, poetry and folklore of the community or tribe. In this way they learned the history and the moral and philosophical attitudes of their people. They had to learn a variety of greetings, recognition of levels of social seniority and the proper etiquette in connection with these. Religious education included training in rituals, sacred festivals and the roles of diviners.

At an early age, children were taught to count up to 20 on their fingers and toes and to do simple addition and subtraction with the aid of stones. As they progressed in knowledge, they were taught weights and measures, the use of cowrie shells (which served as money) and the art of bargaining.

Specialized training for boys focused on farming, working in metals and wood, hunting and the use of herbs and drugs in medicine. Skills were passed on from father to son. Inclination and natural abilities also were considered, and children were encouraged to develop their aptitudes. Therefore, many were apprenticed to artisans outside the family clan.

Girls received training in weaving and dyeing cloth. They learned to make pottery, to plait mats and baskets and to produce cosmetics for use in beauty treatments and hairdressing. They were taught the art of cooking, of brewing beer and of extracting oil from the kernels of the palm nuts. Thus they were prepared for their role as women in the family and the community.

The tribes that had a rural, pastoral or bush culture concentrated more on farming, herding and hunting or fishing. Some educational systems restricted progress into new fields of knowledge by preserving a closed society. Membership usually was restricted to those of certain ethnic origins or religious beliefs. This circumstance contributed toward a stagnation of knowledge. Nevertheless, the education that was provided amply served the needs of those societies.

The Colonial Era

In the wake of the missionary explorer David Livingstone, European missionaries began to increase their activities in Africa in the second half of the nineteenth century. Mission schools started to be set up in towns and villages, and right out in the bush, where students attended in simple loincloths or were completely naked.

These schools were set up on sectarian lines, with Catholics having their own schools and the Protestant religions theirs. This tended to segment the people religiously, and whole areas came to be regarded as the province of a particular religion. Divisions in social levels developed between the literate and the nonliterate segments of each community, and there was a gradual undermining of family influence. Other imbalances were created because traditional patterns of education were being uprooted and were not replaced by any uniform standard.

Still, a start had been made toward widening the horizons of knowledge in Africa. As more people learned to read and write, the knowledge of the world, contained in books, became available even to the remotest tribes. The literate history of non-Moslem, sub-Saharan Africa began to be revived.

Although the people showed aptitude in learning, there were obstacles to overcome. The missionaries usually had to learn the local languages first. Then they had to teach the children in their own European languages, in which books were available. Some did good work in formulating alphabet systems and compiling dictionaries so that many of the local languages could be put into writing. This provided the basis for translating the Bible into many African languages.

In some areas an obstacle was posed by the custom of barring girls from institutional education. When, over 40 years ago, one of the emirs from northern Nigeria visited England, he was impressed at seeing a large girls’ school. He desired a similar provision for the girls of his people. Since the custom was to keep women away from public life, he realized that this would be opposed. So he told his council that he was opening a school in his palace for educating the girls in his household. Within a year the school had 30 pupils, and many of the leading citizens were petitioning the emir to allow their children to attend. A year later, on the pretext that he could no longer tolerate the noise of a school in his palace, he “turned the pupils, teachers, and equipment out into the open town and lodged them in a house adjoining the boys’ school.” (African Challenge, p. 63) Now every primary school in that section of the country is coeducational.

Since children were part of the labor force in each farm family, there was reluctance to lose them to the schools. Gradually, however, as the people recognized the value of the printed page and the advantages of reading and writing, more children were sent to school. So it was in mission schools that many of the outstanding educators and leaders throughout Africa got their early training.

The colonial governments, and the later sovereign governments of each independent state, encouraged the establishment of mission schools, giving financial and administrative help. Provisions were made for more uniform systems of schooling, and additional public and secondary schools and universities were established.

New Education Policies

Since 1970, in a further effort to ensure a more uniform standard of education, the Nigerian government has taken over control of private schools, including mission schools. This has given rise to the problem of adequate moral education in a totally secular school system. Therefore, the authorities have encouraged parents and teachers to provide moral guidance. Efforts have also been made to coordinate the Moslem and indigenous traditional systems of education with modern methods. It is hoped that this will stem the growing tide of unrest, immorality and drug abuse among youths.

In 1976 the Universal Primary Education scheme (UPE) was introduced to provide for free universal education throughout Nigeria. This will give children the opportunity to receive free primary schooling for six years, as well as junior secondary and senior secondary schooling for three years respectively. More schools are, therefore, being provided, and immediate plans are afoot to increase the number of universities to 13.

Adult Education

Because the majority of the adult population is illiterate, the various governments are giving increased attention to adult education. In Nigeria, where the literacy rate is 20 percent for a population of 70 million, the government has established adult education centers in most villages and towns. Many men and women are availing themselves of this opportunity to learn to read and write.

Much progress also is being made in adult literacy programs operating in Kingdom Halls of Jehovah’s Witnesses. By means of such classes, between 1962 and 1976, in Nigeria alone, 15,156 persons have been taught to read and write. Many of these were elderly and thought that they no longer had the ability to learn. They were mostly people from rural areas—farmers, hunters, fishermen, housewives. Their determination to obtain Bible knowledge and to be able to impart Scriptural instruction reawakened their desire to learn. Now they can read and write, and can help in teaching God’s Word to others in their own language and also often in English.

For example, Ezekiel Ovbiagele was trained according to the traditional system of education, but was not taught to read and write. After he received oral Biblical instruction from Jehovah’s Witnesses and was baptized in 1940, he saw the value of learning to read. He enrolled in one of the literacy classes and soon was reading the Bible to others. With further specialized training, he was qualified in 1953 to serve as a traveling overseer, having the responsibility to instruct many congregations in the territory assigned to him. Many others have made similar advancement.

When Jackson Iheanacho first attended meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses, he was literate only in Efik, his native language. He saw the need to learn to read in English, too, since the meetings were conducted in that tongue. With the aid of the congregation’s literacy class, he achieved this and went on to learn other languages as well. He is now able to read and write seven languages!

The literacy rate among Jehovah’s Witnesses is better than 77 percent. Most of the remaining 23 percent are attending literacy classes, either at their Kingdom Halls or at government centers, and so are in various stages of learning to read and write. They appreciate this program, which is reaching out to more and more people.

Purposeful Education

The value and necessity of education cannot be denied. An editorial in the Daily Times of December 29, 1976, spoke of education as “the greatest investment . . . for the quick development of . . . economic, political, sociological and human resources.” However, not just education, but purposeful education is essential. Modern methods have tended to establish materialistic goals, rather than productive ones. To many youths, the purpose of schooling is to obtain a certificate that will guarantee a prestige job and great financial reward. Parents should guide youths in carefully evaluating the purpose of their schooling. The goal should be to acquire real skills and thinking ability so as to ensure productivity in their adult careers.

It should be remembered, however, that the period of formal schooling is not all there is to the process of education. Parents can make use of preschool and out-of-school periods to instruct their children morally and in other ways that will build their personalities along wholesome lines. Much good can be achieved by using the Bible in inculcating decency, honesty and loyalty in the children.

Sir Jim Rose’s April 2009 published report for the government on the overhaul of the primary education curriculum and children’s education highlights the importance of communication.

A focus of the report is on the ability to’ ‘talk’ in primary schools.

This aspect of education is hugely important and of related and massive importance is the ability in later life to take this talk into the public arena.

We are now clearly in the age of presentation and communication and those that can speak in the public in whatever form lead considerably richer lives both materially and intellectually.

It is well known that adults fear speaking in public more than they fear death itself and therefore most do not do it.

So how do you deal with this potential for impoverishment in people’s education and lives? There is provision for the education and training motivated adults but first and foremost we must deal with the matter as early on in children’s lives as we can and this means when learning at the primary school age.

So the question arises; how do you enhance children’s learning experience, provide the necessary education resources to avoid the growth of the fear factor?

The answer has to be based on using a method that employs all aspects of  children’s learning styles using a clear structured approach based on visual, kinaesthetic, auditory, and memory techniques. It is this that will lead to success in their education.

Organisations such ‘The Learning Well’ and ‘The Speaking Well’ and well known individuals such as Tony Buzan, who developed Mind Mapping, have a huge focus in this area providing just such learning techniques, utilising all learning styles, to all those who aspire to give the gift of public speaking to children.

For the sake of our children’s future those now tasked with developing the primary education curriculum must take note of these methods and techniques including the Memory Map and Memory Mapping originated by Tony Lazar and used and spoken about extensively by Alan McMahon, both of ‘The Learning Well’ and ‘The Speaking Well’.

These activities massively boost children’s education and confidence and provide a clear structure for effective speaking, talking and learning

The origin of the term ‘education’ can be traced to Latin roots from the term ‘educare’ meaning ‘to raise’ or ‘to nourish’. The main purpose of bestowing education is to imparting and development of knowledge and its significant application in life in positive aspects and also in the growth of wisdom and social and cultural consciousness. As a result the process of communicating and interacting with students and therefore the efficiency of the teacher and his skills are equally vital for the spread of education. In fact it is necessary to note that all the countries of the world are pledged to extend the cause of education by reaching out to every nook and corner and ensure that every individual is literate. Literacy is a fundamental right of every human being irrespective of geographical boundaries and every child is entitled to receive basic education. Different disciplines contribute accordingly in the spread of education. Here it is to be pointed out that education begins form the grassroots level at home among one’s family and peers but elementary school education begins in the form of primary education and is followed by secondary education and then higher education. Therefore it is not wrong to refer to primary education as the first step towards attaining a bright future. It is the first stage which every child has to embark on in the beginning.

Primary education more often follows nursery or pre-school education. Primary education is a vital stage in the development of the consciousness and personality of the child as it is at this juncture that a whole new world of bright ideas and knowledge open up in front of their eyes. At this stage children are extremely inquisitive and elementary education must encourage this tendency among the children. As the child attains about twelve years of age, he becomes eligible for high school or secondary education. However there are several educational institutions which provide middle school facilities which make the transition form primary to secondary schools quite gradual. Literacy is one of the most important goals that primary education sets to achieve and primary education concerns itself with introducing the study of history, geography, science and the various social sciences along with the necessary languages that need to be learnt. Primary education also encourages the practicing of the liberal arts like music, dance, fine arts and even facilitates physical fitness along with the development of the mind.