Photo credit: United Nations
With the current syllabus being used in our secondary schools, it is very possible for a pupil to finish in our secondary schools without ever being taught biology or even health science.
It is that bad!
At least, pupils should have a basic understanding of hygiene. It appears the powers that be think otherwise.
I am even more concerned about a more mundane issue.
Civic education is now a compulsory subject. That’s a good step, but for the side effects.
The fact that Civic Education is now a compulsory subject has rendered the Government class virtually empty. If you add that to the fact that most of our schools do not offer History, you don’t need to look far to see where our problems are coming from.
So, our pupils are no longer taught about what happened in the past. World history, colonialism, nationalist struggle and the various constitutional conferences, independence,post independence rule, the history of corruption, the history of nation building, civil war,etc.
Incidentally, I think the syllabus of civic education is too light.
I’m proposing a new deal. Let us have a new subject entirely. The subject may be called Citizenship Studies. It will include History, Government and Civic Education.
It will not be a new thing. This is because in the junior forms, we already have Creative and Cultural Studies. This covers Fine Arts, Music, etc.
I’m looking forward to a situation where our youth will be able to learn about the past and compare it with the present so that they may be able to plan for the future.
9508.
