What are we teaching children for?

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday February 12, 2024 06:00

While there are many pockets of the world where access to education requires serious attention, issues of quality and relevance are cross cutting. This is the more reason why the world governing body - the United Nations has in its 17 Sustainable Development Goals the commitment to raise the quality of education across the globe.

The big question is what are we teaching the children for? Is it teaching for acquisition of knowledge for its own sake or is it teaching empowerment agenda enabling young people to navigate and grapple with real life issues confronting the world they live in? Conscious of the urgent need to grow and nurture a repertoire of the 21st century skills ranging from self confidence, collaboration and team building, problem solving, entrepreneurship and interpersonal communication abilities, to name but a few. Curriculum framers are hard at work trying to make education a worthy pursuit - some kind of panacea to problems bedeviling the world.

A noteworthy contribution of the progressive curriculum is the conscious and deliberate investments made in the citizenship education front. Citizenship education encompasses educating young people the meaning of good citizenry, promoting awareness on responsibilities and rights of good citizens while encouraging active participation in the formation and sustenance of democratic, credible, accountable, transparent governments. In particular, the subject of elections and their contribution to parliamentary representative democracy assumes a critical and prominent role in the citizenship education agenda. Many schools, both private and public, have graduated from an ivory tower type of curriculum carrying little or no relevance to the real world outside school. To promote democracy, many schools, if not all, are affording students opportunities to experiment with elections at school levels.

The old dispensation of prefecture, where school administrators unilaterally appointed and deployed student leaders without the input and consent of the governed, is gradually losing appeal and Student Representative Councils (SRCs) have gained currency and prominence. It will be remembered that SRCs with their radical character, were historically the exclusive preserve of high institutions of learning. But now the imperative of growing and sustaining democracy at the grassroots has made SRCs a common phenomenon in high schools. As alluded to earlier in the discussion, citizenship education is not an end in itself but a means to an end.

It is not just a school mock examination exercise but it is real education intended to promote active participation in democracy beyond the borders of a school while seeking to prevent and address voter apathy among young people. The efficacy of citizenship education will be tested in 2024 in Southern Africa as three countries namely, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, go to the polls. It remains to be seen how well citizenship education has prepared young people for the greater role of shaping their destinies through voting. As the oldest and mature democracy in Southern Africa , Botswana for a very long time put the minimum voting qualification at 21 years. However, the need to embrace the voice of young people brought about electoral reforms. The participation of young people in elections in Botswana was subsequently boosted by a promulgation of enabling a piece of legislation permitting lowering the voting age from 21 years to 18 years. Traditionally in Botswana, voting was indeed an adult affair based on the notion of universal adult suffrage.

And the system literally and painfully disenfranchised young people in high schools. Many 18-year-olds are in their penultimate or final years at high schools and armed with citizenship training, it is expected that they will not only register in large numbers but also cast their votes as first time voters to finally place their fortunes in their own hands.

Through SRCs, which is literally a dress rehearsal, the students continue to show a lot of zeal and enthusiasm in the election of student representatives. It is hoped that the students extend the same passion and spirit to the national voting exercise geared towards building a better tomorrow for all. Credit must go to the curriculum framers and classroom practitioners for preparing students for their future roles in their real life experiences. Whether the present citizenship training is sufficient to enable students in the three Southern African countries to exercise their rights to vote responsibly and make informed decisions, one cannot tell.

However ,curriculum development is an interminable and ongoing process and feedback could be used to close gaps identified in the curriculum. It is interesting to note that Botswana, in the quest for quality education and relevance, is on the verge of implementing an outcome/competency-based curriculum. It is a curriculum which makes the student the epicentre of teaching and learning as it gives more provision for students to express themselves as opposed to an old dispensation where teachers dominate the teaching and learning theater. It is hoped that the new dispensation would amplify opportunities for students to grasp and experiment deeper into issues of participatory democracy and elections in schools. Otherwise kudos must go to the curriculum framers for ensuring that schools continue to teach and spread the notion that there is no civic duty greater than participating in elections.