CSD-17 Youth Caucus E-consultation - Groups - Action Tools

Message

From:	Ikenna Ebuenyi [ profile ]
Subject:	Re: [csd17Yconsult] Week 2 Questions
Sent:	May 5th, 2009 - 07:31:12

	Hello, I am Ebuenyi Ikenna from Nigeria. I work with Adolescent rights and Care Foundation. 1 It is no news that the our Nation’s educational system has failed. It is also no longer news that the standards of education is at its lowest ebb. In the distant past we had a Nigeria where education was regarded as the panacea to the individual and societal problems. Education was touted as the messiah that would emancipate the people as well as confer the long sought social and economic independence sought after by all and sundry. Then ,families and communities gloried in educated sons and daughters. Now we have a Nigeria where family and social pride rests on Naira notes and Porsche cars parked in the family’s porches; where education has become nothing. The standards of education has not just fallen ;it has become nothing . Unemployment has become an endemic illness that the people have come to accept as normal. This shift in the value of education in the minds of the people is an adaptive attitude to changing times which the status quo created. In essence, because education became a handicapped messiah that failed to solve the problems brought at his feet, the people sought after other gods. There is every need to integrate sustainable development into our educational system. individualizing the educational system to meet the needs of the individual person is important towards sustainable education and effacing the fallen standards of education. Our future educational plans must as a matter of necessity recognize talent and work towards bettering the inherent skills and not the recreation of a new man. Talent must be recognized and improved on rather than the present foisting of ill fitted degrees and courses on individuals with no predilection to such courses. Equally important is the need to rid the teaching profession of arm chair and default teachers. 2 Capacity building is of course an essential ingredient in nation building and development. Unfortunately, young people in developing countries are more often unable to explore their full potentials because of inimical social and environmental factors which fail to provide the necessary boost for capacity building. The result is what can be termed talent atrophy. Only in few instances have there been efforts at assisting young people develop their inherent skills and the results have been encouraging; yet so much remains undone in these sphere in order to maximize youth potentials and their contribution to sustainable development. Thanks. yours truly Ikenna

		Groups Powered by TakingITGlobal