Lecture

The Nigerian Child

A professor of early childhood education, ECE, in her inaugural lecture highlights the attitude of parent towards the objectives of pre-schools.

You most have noticed the nonchalant attitude of parent towards children, in the teaching of mother tongue, starting from the age of one. The Nigerian child is in many respects like his counterparts anywhere in the world: however, he is also in many respects different from them. Unlike his counterparts growing up in a relatively more liberal world, the socio-cultural context into which he is born and in which he is growing imposes upon him burden of fulfilling the expectations of his cultures.

To start with, the Nigeria parents have always had the history of appropriately appreciating, caring, guiding, loving their children. We remember Yoruba in particular with those praise songs, ORIKI, dished out to children who succeeded in doing acts of honor, valor, noble, courage, pride to themselves and their families. According to Osanyin, 2003, such children were noted to have manifested skillfulness in the given tasks, effective home membership, integration into the culture, possession of worthy occupation.

In other words, there were available in the children’s immediate environment adults who constantly monitored, assessed, scrutinized, evaluated, judge and valued the children according to societal criteria. They cared for whatever happened to the children. Many of the children, were not known to be involved in any social ills such as examination malpractice, cultism, fraud, cheating, drug, robbery, and violence because parental appreciation interest and concern served as motivation, incentive, encouragement, and gratification of hard work, sincerity, diligence and persistence in process of acquiring skills, knowledge and positive disposition.

The home is a child’s place of residence, abode, or the child’s family. The child’s total development and personality epitomize the type of upbringing he or she received in the home. A person’s moral and spiritual beliefs are tied with honesty, loyalty, kindness, and fair play, right, wrong, politeness and other virtues in the home.

To the Education Products Information Exchange Document, 1972, young children learn as a result of models or persons in the family or community who demonstrate specific behaviors, which are copied by the young observers.

The family is therefore the primary socialization agent for the child and it is a basic social unit, which is bound by blood and marriage relations. The immediate contact of any person with the society is the family. Family life constitutes the interaction of members in terms of needs, emotions, characters, attitudes, and interpersonal relations. It provides for protection, sustenance, maintenance of members and other satisfactions. The family is very important because everyone is rooted in the family.

So serious is this issue towards the attitudes of parents and teachers, the objectives of pre-schools, was the subject of the inaugural lecture delivered by Florence Ajike Osanyin, a Professor of Early Childhood Education, University of Lagos, recently at the school’s main auditorium.

Titled “ Once Upon A Child, ” Osanyin explores the vulnerable period of a child’s life. According to her, she said the tremendous amount of attention devoted to the subject of early education for young children in the last few decades, stems from the complexities that typify the nature of the child. She also noted that the complexities in children result from nature and nurture. The nature of children is such that no two children are completely the same or alike in everything not even identical twins.

Apart from this, Osayin says the early years are crucial in childhood development. Brain research established that the most rapid development of the brain occurs in the first three years of a child’s life. According to Godgers, 2001, the last three months of prenatal life and the first two years after birth have been termed the most critical period to brain growth spurt. This is because, during this period, brain cells grow in abundance; more than half of the adult brain weight is added. It grows tremendously in the first few years of life, increasing to about 2 to 3 of adult weight by the end of the first year and to about 75 per cent by the age of two years and 90 per cent by the age of five. Thus, a five years old child’s brain has developed almost to the level of an adult.

Early childhood education is the education of young children from birth through age eight. This form of education has existed since the creation of kindergarten in the 1800s. Early childhood education encompasses the care, protection, stimulation, and learning promoted in children from early years. It could be at home, a day care center, play - group, crèche, nursery, kindergarten and lower primary. 

But Osanyin therefore notes that, “once upon a child”, connotes the story of every child, any child, my story, your story: a story that reminds us of great disparity between what is and what should be. Gone are the days when the child could have all that he ever needed to survive, grow, develop, live and achieve fulfillment without unreasonable exertions. The child who use to be has now become a fading character of a distant tale from other lands, a tale that leaves you wondering when, how and why the child have been allowed to wander into the oblivion of memory. In the Nigerian society, achieving success is in spite of hostile environment in which the child grows.

The hope for healthy, happy, peaceful and socially competent generation therefore lies in the place of the child in the society’s scheme of things and the provision of quality of human and material environment that surround the child in the early years.         

By Portia