Problems and Prospects of Adult Education in Nigeria
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The following are the objectives of this study:
- To examine the problems of adult education in Nigeria.
- To examine the prospects of Adult education in Nigeria.
- To examine the component of Adult education in Nigeria.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
Education is generally viewed as the most important instrument for change, progress and development by all societies the world over. Throughout human history, education remains the most important agent of social conservation and transformation, and indeed the most significant means by which the experiences and the overall cultural disposition of all human communities are transmitted across generations revealed that. Equally important to note is the fact that the educational system of society evolves from within the values, need an aspirations of such society. Adult education simply means the type of education which specially designs for people who were chanced to go to an earlier stage and those that want to improve their education while working. It is a form of educational programme design to equip the adult members of the society with EDUCATION and numeracy skills required for their day to day activities in the society. There are several problems of adult education in educational system these include, people who are more attracted to success than failure. Also people tend to perceive according to experience. The association of school failure experience in childhood can scare an adult off any anticipated educational programme. Prospect is the important part of the programme which benefits could be derived from it, that is to help in promoting EDUCATION and understanding for adult and become self-employed in order to improve the nation. Therefore, this paper addresses the following objectives, offering basic education and EDUCATION programme to undeserved and hard-to-serve populations, providing an alternative avenue to formal schooling wherever official mechanisms for crossover and equivalent are provided.
THE CONCEPT OF ADULT EDUCATION
According to, Okedara (1996) viewed, Adult education as educational programme designed for the adult without any legal compulsion. The point in this definition is that adult education is meant for the adult and participation is essentially out of the free will of the adult. UNESCO (1994) also viewed Adult education as covering all organized educational activities provided for people who are not in regular school and university system and are generally fifteen and older.
Nzeneri in his handbook on Adult Education Principles and Practices described Adult as a person who is physical and psychologically mature and who is socially, economically and politically responsible. In his words, physical maturity implies that the adult is capable of being a parent, picking a life partner, raising a family and managing home.
As a follow up to this definition of who an adult is, we would now look at what UNESCO explained as adult education.
UNESCO (1990) defined Adult Education as the “entire body of organized educational processes whatever the content, level and methods, whether formal or otherwise, whether they prolong or replace initial education in the schools, colleges or universities as well in adult by the society, whereby persons regarded as adult by society to which they belong develop their abilities, enrich their knowledge, improved their technical or professional qualification and bring about changing in their attitude or behaviour in the two fold perspective of full personal development and participation in balanced and independent social, economic and cultural development.
Based on the above presentations, we now posit adult education to mean a process by which a matured member of a society acquires knowledge and skills to make himself relevant in his community.
Adult EDUCATION is therefore described as a process of acquiring skills and the effort of transmitting and receiving messages in a intelligible manner during the matured years i.e the voluntary study out of the formal school system.
Thus, adult EDUCATION as a basic component of adult education includes all the activities with educational purposes carried on by people engaged in the ordinary business of life. This branch of education, thus stems directly from the people and it enables its recipients to grapple successfully with the problems of life and contribute meaningful to communities betterment. In view of the above, the researcher is of the view that the EDUCATION of adult in Ikpoba-Okha local government area will go a long way in promoting the socio-economic and political advancement of the State. Hence, the study of the problem that are likely to hinder the progress of the programme with recommendation is concerned to be very essential.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
The study made use of survey research method. This was considered appropriate because the study was involved in finding people’s opinion on the issues of the study. The design is fitting to a situation where the variables cannot easily be manipulated by the researcher.
POPULATION
The population of the study concerned is adults males and females which are both learners and instructors respectively.
Thirty-two (32) people were used in participating of adult EDUCATION programmes on four of the selected centres, out of the seven centres in Ikpoba-Okha local government area, and these centres are:
- Pioneer education center
- Pre-Gce examiner school or reading and writing
- Fortune adult EDUCATION centre.
- Adult department, Ikpoba-Okha local government secretariat, Idugbo
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
This chapter is devoted to the presentation, analysis and interpretation of the data gathered in the course of this study. The data are based on the number of copies of the questionnaire completed and returned by the respondents. The data are presented in tables and the analysis is done using the chi-square test.
CHAPTER FIVE
FINDINGS, SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The objectives of the study were to:
- To examine the problems of adult education in Nigeria.
- To examine the prospects of Adult education in Nigeria.
- To examine the component of Adult education in Nigeria.
Findings from the study revealed the following
- Adult education has helped in the educational development of the Nigerian adult.
- Adult education should not be scrapped from the educational syllabus.
- There are interesting prospects of adult education in Nigeria.
- There are problems of effective implementation of adult education in Nigeria.
CONCLUSION
From the findings above, we discovered that there are problems confronting effective adult education implementation in Nigeria; some of these problems includes; implementation of the adult eduation in Nigeria, source of finance to fund the adult education programs in Nigeria and the participation of adult in the enrolment of the program. from the result of the analysis, we found out that the p-value for the hypothesis tested was 0.00 less than 0.05 level of significance and various conclutions were made.
RECOMMENDATION
Based on the findings above from the responses of the respondents, we recommend that:
- The federal government of Nigeria should set a program informing the adult of the importance of the adult education program.
- The certificate obtained from adult education should be accepted by employers as this will help in the motivation of adult to enroll in the adult education program
- The school fees of adult education should be affordable.
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