Basic education is the education given to children aged 0-14 years. It encompasses the early childhood education (0-5), and 9 years of formal schooling (six\u00a0 years of primary education and 3 years of junior secondary education).Early childhood education however is segmented into ages 0-3 years situated in daycare centres fully in the hands of\u00a0 the private sector and social development services whilst ages 3-5 are within the formal education sector.<\/p>\n
This is the education which every Nigerian child is expected to receive between the ages of three (3) and fourteen (14) years. It consists of three years of Early Childhood Care Development and Education (ECCDE), Primary, as well as Adult and Non-Formal Education.\u00a0 It also covers special interventions directed at nomadic and migrant children, mass literacy as well as the \u2018almajirais\u2019 and other vulnerable and excluded groups.\u00a0 The agencies which coordinates the affairs of this sub sector is the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) and National Mass Education Commission (NMEC).<\/p>\n
In Nigeria, Basic education is free, universal and compulsory for all children of school-going age.\u00a0 The goals of basic education are to:<\/p>\n
a) Provide the child with diverse basic knowledge and skills for entrepreneurship, wealth generation and educational advancement.<\/p>\n
b) Develop patriotic young people equipped to contribute to social development and in the performance of their civic responsibilities.<\/p>\n
c) Inculcate values and raise morally upright individuals capable of independent thinking, and who appreciate the dignity of labour.<\/p>\n
d) Inspire national consciousness and harmonious co-existence irrespective of differences in endowment, religion, ethnic and socio-economic background.<\/p>\n
e)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Provide opportunities for the child to develop manipulative skills that will enable the child function effectively in the society within the limits of the child\u2019s capacity.<\/p>\n
Others are:<\/p>\n
\u00b7Developing in the entire citizenry a strong commitment for education and strong commitment to its vigorous promotion.<\/p>\n
\u00b7Reducing drastically the incidence of drop out from the formal school system through improved relevance, quality and efficiency.<\/p>\n
\u00b7Catering for the learning needs of young persons who for one reason or another, have to interrupt their schooling through appropriate forms of complementary approaches to provision and promotion of basic education.<\/p>\n
\u00b7Ensuring the acquisition of appropriate levels of literacy, numeracy, manipulative,\u00a0 communication and live skills as well as the ethical, moral and civic values needed for laying a solid foundation for life-long learning.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 Strategies mapped out by government to address these issues include:<\/p>\n
\u00b7Wide sensitisation and advocacy in support of enrolment, retention funding<\/p>\n
\u00b7Inventory of infrastructure needs of schools, as well as urgent rehabilitation of schools.<\/p>\n
\u00b7Establishment of National Agency for Education Quality Assurance at all levels below the tertiary level.<\/p>\n
\u00b7Ensure appropriate staffing in schools, implement National Teacher Education Policy, institutionalise career development and provide conducive working environment for teachers.<\/p>\n
\u00b7Ensure timely review and enrichment of the schools curriculum<\/p>\n
\u00b7Increase of budgetary provision for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and provision of ICT laboratories in all schools with requisite ICT infrastructure and services to also accommodate children with special needs.<\/p>\n
\u00b7Deliverables to tie in with the specific strategies have also been articulated and timelines included in government\u2019s action plan.\u00a0 Let\u00a0 us briefly examine specific aspects of the basic education policy.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0\u00a0 Early Childhood Care and Education<\/p>\n
The Jomtien Declaration article 5 and the United Nations conventions on Child Rights, states; \u201clearning begins at birth.\u00a0 This calls for early childhood care and initial education. This can be provided through arrangements involving families, communities, schools\/institutional programs as appropriate\u201d.\u00a0 Nigeria not only endorsed the Jomtien declaration and convention on Child\u2019s Rights but has only recently given prominence to the need for early childhood care and education in the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Assembly passed the Child\u2019s Rights Act into law and was signed by the Governor of Rivers State, Sir, Amaechi on the 24th February, 2010.<\/p>\n
This is because research has shown that sensations necessary for the development of the five senses occur between ages 0-3 years.\u00a0 Also the building blocks for effective learning in later years occur between ages 4-6 years. No wonder the huge investment in early childhood education in developed countries.<\/p>\n
In Nigeria, early childhood education is the care, protection, stimulation and learning promoted in children from age 0-5 years in a day care centre, nursery or kindergarten.\u00a0 For others still it is a form of organised learning for age-specific competencies for children between 0-6 years.\u00a0 When the focus is on children between the age brackets 3-6, it is usually referred to as nursery education or early childhood education. However, if the focus is integrative of all young children 0-6 years it is usually referred to as Early Child Care Development Education (ECCDE).\u00a0 It is particularly important\u00a0 to understand the difference between ECE and ECCDE, even though both concepts have been used interchangeably in recent years.<\/p>\n
ECE emphasizes purely the educational framework and ECCDE emphasizes all aspects of child\u2019s development including education, health, nutrition etc. ECCDE is being emphasised in poor disadvantaged communities where parents are poor and cannot provide the basic necessitates\u00a0 such as nutrition and health which are key components if education is to succeed.\u00a0 This necessitates the need for intervention from the outside to support families\u2019 role in all aspects of the children\u2019s lives because families cannot afford to do so.\u00a0 The ECCDE concept that integrates education with other issues such as nutrition and health can work only with close collaboration among the different stakeholders such as government\u2019s ministries of education\/UBE, health, social welfare, International agencies, NGOs, churches, etc.<\/p>\n
The purpose of Early Childhood Care Development Education (ECCDE) in Nigeria is to<\/p>\n
(a)\u00a0\u00a0 Effect a smooth transition from the home to the school.<\/p>\n
(b)Prepare the child for the primary level of education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Basic education is the education given to children aged 0-14 years. It encompasses the early childhood education (0-5), and 9 years of formal schooling (six\u00a0 years of primary education and 3 years of junior secondary education).Early childhood education however is segmented into ages 0-3 years situated in daycare centres fully in the hands of\u00a0 the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}