Patriotism and the Teaching/Learning of History in Nigeria’s Basic Education Schools: An Assessment of NCCE Minimum Standards

Abstract

Patriotism and civic responsibilities of the average Nigerian has been a major subject of discourse in contemporary study of citizenship and apathy to the Nigerian Nationhood. Nigerian's lack of patriotism has been largely blamed on the functionality of government which has been described as selfish and self-centered. The people view the government as a group of few that milks the nation's wealth to the detriment of the larger population of Nigerians. This study however, not oblivious of the above factor looks at another dimension which may have hampered the spirit of patriotism of Nigerians. most nations whose citizens to a large extent are said to be patriotic have in addition to good governance, the consciousness of patriotism from childhood as this is explicitly contained in the syllabi of elementary schools which can be likened to Nigeria's Basic Schools. This work therefore is to critically assess the knowledge and information being given to pupils of Nigeria's Basic Education in terms of the syllabus which could endear them to be patriotic and have the nationalistic pride. By so doing, this research will look at the general perception of Nigerian citizens towards their country, the concept of Basic Education in Nigeria, and assess the syllabus of History as contained in the National Commission for Colleges of Education Minimum Standards which is the official guiding document for the training of teachers of Nigerian Basic Schools to determine if they are sufficient to raise the consciousness of patriotism in the Nigerian child



Author Information
Iyela Ajayi, Federal College of Education, Nigeria
Enesi Prince Habib, Federal College of Education, Nigeria

Paper Information
Conference: ECE2015
Stream: Higher education

This paper is part of the ECE2015 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon