1.1Background of the study
Social studies classes are known to be boring and meaningless by many students, especially the junior secondary school students.It’s increasing state standards have gradually destroyed many teachers’ faith that creative practices can be used due to the pressure to “get through” the material. The central objective of social studies is to assist young people and the society make well-informed, reasoned and intelligent decisions for the public well-being as good citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world. Grooming responsible and reserved citizens is paramount in any governmental system; it is essential to a democracy. Now the real challenges lie with the amount of material to be taught and the tedious task it is to convince the secondary school students, especially the junior ones, and policy makers, that the social studies as a subject is vital in their world.
Nigeria is a society comprising people of different social classes, religions, races and ethnic groups. There are comparatively two hundred and fifty different languages and over four hundred dialects. It is the desire of Nigerians to be one unified nation, with a single goal and with a people who share common goals. Since Nigeria achieved independence in 1960, successive governments have sought to inflict this single identity through education, and specifically social studies.
The efforts of educationaliststhatdesired and tried to introduce the teaching of Social Studies into schools in Nigeria in the early days served as a catalyst for the introduction of Social Studies into the school curriculum immediately after independence. Its penetration into the school curriculum at this time was could not last long because there were no schools in which the subject could be taught but it was re-introduced in 1963 to assist learners to learn about themselves, societal problems and about the wider communities in which they live. Social Studies, with its unified approach to learning, was seen as being equal to cutting across artificial subject divisions and presenting knowledge as an integrated whole. In this range of vision, the fact that Social Studies in the Nigerian deals with an interplay of various factors – political, economic, cultural, physical, technological - the learner develops different view of reality that helps him or her to make well thought-out reasoned and rational suggestions equipped towards societal development. Nigeria as a nation came into existence from different socio-cultural entities. As a result of our differences, it has not been an easy task to build a sense of common unity, national pride and single purpose because the spirit of unity, oneness at national level is very weak when compared with the moralsense of belonging. Therefore, to bring this goal of building a united, viable and prosperous Nigeria into existence, the school curriculum became the base on which national unity was to be established and fostered.
Social Studies a unique and importantsubject in Nigeria's educational system. It is a mandatory subject for all Nigerian students in primary school and junior secondary school and an elective subject at the senior secondary school level. Since the present time when the subject was re-introduced into the school curriculum till now, its impact has been limited. For example, ethnic loyalty rather than national loyalty continues to improve; the spirit of unity at national level is very weak when compared with the ethnic sense of belonging. Accordingly, after independence, the level of social development in the southern part of the country was to a large extent higher than in the northern part. The effect of this is constant social clash between the people in the North and those in the South. In the process, national boundaries inflicted by colonial masters have resulted in political tensions with separate nations being forced to work together within administrative units. People who had never for once been politically or socially bound to each other, with different histories, cultures, languages, beliefs and social structures have no other choice but find a way of living and working together.
As mentioned above, Nigeria still remains a society that comprises of different social classes of people, religions, races with each ethnic group challenging succeeding governments’ ‘one-nation’ aspirations despite the introduction of Social Studies into the school curriculum. Over the years, a series of plan have been developed by different administrations to foster the dreamed goal of national unity. All these plans to foster nation’s unity did not achieve the desired goals completely. This fuelled the desire to research onthe reason Social Studies has not been effective as it should have been, what teachers’ think about its effectiveness.
Accounting/ Audit/ Finance Jobs
Administration/ Office/ Operations Jobs
Advertising/ Social Media Jobs
Copyright © 2024 All Right Reserved CVClue
A Subsidiary of EMINENT INFO TECH VENTURES