Philosophical education, questionstorming, change in school system

PHILOSOPHICAL education could change the school system because the educational sector is in dire need of transformation and an overhaul. This piece situates the problem with basic schooling and explores how philosophical education or philosophy for children (p4c) would deliver the much-needed change. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has a problem of out-of-school children. I call it the problem of out-of-formal-school children because different types of schools, formal and informal, operate in Nigeria. The problem of out-of-formal-school children persists. According to UNICEF, about 18 million children, that is, 1 in 3 three children in the country, are out of school. Indeed, these children are out of school, but it does not mean that they do not receive any form of education at all. Or that they are out of school in all respects. Strictly speaking, no Nigerian child is out of school. All children attend schools and receive some form of education or the other. All children attend or go through family schools. They receive informal education on traditional norms, dogmas, and values as framed by their parents and guardians. Traditional informal education or instruction is a form that children are expected to uphold and hand down. Children are taught to obey and not question or challenge authorities such as their parents and elders of the community.

Many parents send their children to religious, Christian, and Quranic, schools where religious authorities teach them about the world, and how to live and relate in line with religious dictates. Children are enrolled in Sunday schools and catechism classes where they are taught to memorize Christian and biblical doctrines, which they are not expected to question or interrogate. Children are also sent to Quranic schools. The number of children in Quranic schools all over Nigeria is estimated to exceed 9.5 million, with more than 8.5 million in the northern part of the country. Many of the Quranic school students constitute most of the out-of-formal-school children. While some later enroll in formal schools, others do not because their families are too poor to do so or they embrace the indoctrination that the formal school system is western, corrupting, and therefore, Haram, which means, forbidden.

Meanwhile, memorization plays a key role in the different modes of instruction of children, in family/community/religious schooling. For instance, at a very tender age, children from Muslim families are sent to Quranic schools, where they are taught to recite and memorize verses of the Quran. For memorizing the Quran, children are rewarded with cash prizes and gifts. Local and international Quranic recitation competitions are organized every year. In Nigeria, state governments in Muslim-majority states, foundations, and individuals sponsor these events. They give scholarships to children who excel in the competition. In 2022, the Bauchi State Government “gifted 10 winners, participants and judges of the 36th National Quranic Recitation Competition held in the state the sum of N25 million”(15,000 dollars). In addition, the government awarded scholarships to 10 male and female winners up to the university level. Children and youths from Christian families are also rewarded for excelling in Biblical, catechism, and Sunday school classes. There is a huge social capital in memorization of what is taught or learnt.

Some Muslim families send their children first to Quranic schools before they are sent to formal basic schools if they do that at all. Some children attend Quranic and basic schools simultaneously. These religious and authoritarian modes of instruction have an overbearing influence on how children think, believe, behave, and respond to issues in society. These modes of instruction have been linked to cases of cult violence and carnage, mind-boggling bloodletting on campuses and in the wider society. School children and youths constitute mobs that lynch alleged blasphemers, stone, torture or sometimes kill alleged witches. These children are products of these dogmatic and authoritarian schooling systems. Meanwhile, the basic education program claims to foster critical thinking and reflective inquiry. The national policy on education states that one of the objectives of primary education is to lay a solid foundation for scientific, critical, and reflective thinking. But this policy exists on paper not in practice. There is a disconnect between policy and practice. The anticipated foundation has not been laid. The existing foundation is anything but solid.

In formal schools, instructions are no less doctrinaire and authoritarian. They are steeped in memorisation, not interrogation or critical reflection of information. Rote learning is the mainstay of teaching and learning. Students are made to commit to memory what they have been taught and to reproduce the information during tests and examinations as a way to demonstrate knowledge and understanding.