Ideology Corrected

Ideology, “Religion” and Formal Education In Nigeria; A philosophical Appraisal Okechukwu (MH) Izunwa Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Introduction Every Education is education for man, for there is no education for its own sake. Indeed, formal education is an important social institution in Nigeria. It constitutes a major carrier of value in building the society. However, there are two sides to every educational system or process: the raw data of learning and their Value counterpart. It is this value carrier that is here designated ideology in education. And because this value carrier makes claims to the spiritual that are very similar to that of religion, this paper calls it the religion in education as a preferred or choice label. While every educational institution operates to civilize man by charting informed courses of action for his technical and socio-economic behaviour, the religious element implicit in every quantum of education that is the other side of education process provides relevant values and keeps them within safe limits of decent and acceptable models. In this way, the formation arising from the educational system does not assume the nature of deformation. The thrust of this paper is to allow the ideology of education in the Nigerian formal education system to rise to the occasion of what is current in that sector to interpret and criticize it. It concludes that formal education in Nigeria at any point delivers more or less to the extent education is pursued in harmony with the ideology inherent in it. Where the religious ancestry of education is alienated either by curriculum planners, teachers or learners, the remnant of education will be quite inefficient and limping. In its scope, this paper enables ideology to bear on investigating the impetus for research and the humanism of education. Having done precisely that, it will next explore the human curiosity to know, education as an event, content, method and orientation of education added to the emerging patterns in the Nigerian educational system Ideology in Education: Meaning, Function and Orientation

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Ideology has been variously defined as the “science of ideas” or an “abstract system of ideas that is not in accordance with reality”. However, in historical materialism the word “ideology” is tagged to any system that claims to have some spiritual values.1 These chiefly include religion, philosophy, ethics, political science and so on. It is precisely from this point of view that this paper prefers to appreciate ideology and thus to argue that education in itself shares in an ideology- one which is internal not external to it. This conclusion that there is an ideology in education arises not from a fabricated mental construction but from a reasoned analysis of the origin, nature and function of education in the human society. Education as an event is beyond the perimetre boundaries of the material universe. Precisely because of the values which it contemplates, the forces of historical materialism and the laws of evolution of matter cannot exhaust it as to sufficiently account for it. Values are non-material if anything, they are spiritual and their proper ancestry must be sort beyond the veils of material existence. It is all the more persuasive to argue in this direction, because education is classically said to deliver by a double limb. The first is information and the second is formation. Both are intervolved into a dense organic system so much so that the educational information carries within its categories, effective and disciplined apparatus of formation. Every education properly so called should have this default. Even from the etymological derivation of the word, education, one already observes the attempt to show that education is essentially of a “spiritual nature”. Precisely as deriving from ‘educere’, as propounded by the idealists of Platonic extraction, education means “to lead out”.2 This school of thought holds that the learner sustains some innate ideas which needed to be squeezed out. The knowledge stored in the innate ideas is supposed to be anterior to experience and all the possibilities inherent in experience. Thus a suggestion of another reference world is struck at here. The second school of thought (realists) derive the meaning of education from “educare” which stands for “to form”.3 Formation to be sure, is done with values as it is inculcation of desired mores. Hence, there is a temporal priority of values (spiritual and ethical) to the art of formation itself. Formation does not produce values, it causes them to be in a person. If anything, values are the seminal

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indices of any good formation programme. And so, whichever way one goes, education is an ideology with sufficient claim of spiritual values. Indeed, most definitions which scholars have advanced for the project of education contain right within them cognate implications for religious and spiritual values. Of peculiar appeal is that given by Plato according to which education is that “training which is given by suitable habits to the first instincts of virtue”. 4 It was left for Milton to describe what he calls a complete education in other words, what every education properly so called should be able to communicate. Thus “I call, therefore, a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.5 In both definitions as cited above, one gleans a moral emphasis on good, bad, virtue and justice etc. Over and above, moral emphasis which aligns with the claim to spiritual values, Milton, Comenius6 and a host of other scholars, believed that the educated man should know all’. The very word they used was ‘Pansophia’. On the face of it, the Greek word Sophia means wisdom but on a closer analysis analogous to its classical usage, it goes beyond the realm of ordinary knowledge or science and makes reference to another worldly element. In an analytic attempt to show that the classical employment of the word ‘sophia’ intentionally goes beyond forms of knowledge capable of being acquired by experience of the world. Harry Schofeild argued that the Greek Sophia suggests abstract and even other worldly ideas and that strange area of philosophical investigations-metaphysics.”7 Metaphysics, itself coming from the Greek expression of “ta meta physica” means-‘things beyond the physical realm”. And so, if the educated man is described in terms of “sophia” then a suggestion of another worldly implication is effectively established on the foregone authority. Little wonder not a few definitions of education, ancient and modern attempt to define it as if it is a religious or theological event. Of course, that is the proper default definition, for any attempt to define or impute on education a meaning which tries to bereave it of an “Ideological content” would fail. This is the problem of such systems as American Instrumentalism, Pragmatism, Process Education and so on. In the above systems, education would only address the human environment without considering the human elements in it. It will improve on technical sophistication but will derogate from all human and spiritual values. But because the

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subject of education is man in his human and spiritual conditions, such education will fail. Suffice it to say that education has with it, an inexorable ideological content so called. And that this ideology in education is what this paper chooses to call the religion in education or the religion of education. Interwoven with, enchanting and animating the technical and artistic possibilities and advancement in learning, its hallmark is to humanize the educational enterprise. Thus education becomes not just useful but useful to man. Without harping on the ideology in education, education will miss the subject matter that is –man. When this happens, there could be progress in terms of technical sophistication but one which operates to technically suffocate man. In the event of this, such progress is vitiated for being ateleological or even anti-teleological since it works against its purpose. For instance, if the whole field of engineering reduces itself to merely tinkering with technical and elemental manoeuvering of material indices, it will advance nonetheless but with little or no reference to man. And when it refers to man it is in terms of negative implications. Genetic engineering for one, is labouring under this kind of burden at present. Here, for the advance of learning and science, the subject, Man has been dehumanized. Yet the ideology in education calls attention to certain philosophical principles as: (I) Priority of persons over things (ii) Priority of ethics over science.(iii)Priority of subjects over objects. No matter how far scholars go to contend these principles, success will be doubtful. What is more, it is in the advance of education without the religious ideological or human dimension to it, that the modern society arrived at the whole issues of: education without character, pleasure without conscience, commerce without morality, politics without principle, rights without responsibility. These have been referred to as the blunders that lead to violence in the society. IDEOLOGY AND IMPETUS FOR RESEARCH There is this important characteristic of ideology and that is ‘force’, ‘passion’, ‘emotiveness’ and indeed ‘pressure’. And of all ideologies, religion reserves the greatest intensity of pressure. Thus, it provides the deepest source of influence to whatever it is directed. Little wonder religious disparities or problems implicated by religion are difficult to resolve and do cause quite a large volume of unrest. And so, if we have

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identified the ideology in education to be akin to the religious ideology, it follows that the impetus to advancement of learning itself arises from that point in education as a reality. What it also means is that without that emotive point or source, education will be imperiled in its advancement and effect. In its advancement because, it is not mere necessity that brings invention but real necessity and real necessity is the necessity for human survival. Human survival here means integral relevance to man not just to what he ‘eats’ and ‘has’ but also to what he is per se. Hence man is most likely to be committed to the furtherance of research and rigorous investigations when his real interest is sensitized. In this way, it becomes obvious that real progress in education and learning will come from an appeal to the ideological index of education, which ideology is concerned about man and the limits of his infinite possibilities. Some experts call this kind of creative impetus afforded by sensitizing the spiritual sensibilities of man subcreation to use Tolkiens notation. As a matter of fact, “in producing its ideas, the mind moves beyond its previous achievements by a creative leap. There is, of course, a remaining link with the material world.… When we speak of the use of the imagination in pure mathematics, philosophical speculation or musical composition, we are referring to the creativity of the human intellect which produces, sometimes spontaneously and sometimes with great labour, works that could not have been predicted in advance.” When scientific progress is recorded without reference to this inner metaphysic: the ideological matrix, such a ‘progress’ is of the nature of accidents without a substance. It will not endure. But for the time being, it will survive by the weak support of fascination, novelty, excitement and excitation, exploration and exploitation of unfounded sensibilities. And this is only for a while. Is that not why the so called developed West after a long time of fascination with technical civilization and de-emphasis on life are now reconsidering their earlier conclusions? No more capital punishment, not abortion but continence, no more deforestation for industrialization but the preservation of wild life, no more concentration of, but destruction even by accords of chemical and life assault machinery? In fact, it is arguably unlikely that the society can escape the consequences of education devoid of this ideological metaphysic. It is the possible cause of the fall of civilizations and empires because the relationships between the ideological

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index in education and the dry technical counterpart is not one of association or contiguity but one of substructure and superstructure, substance and accident. IDEOLOGY AND EDUCATIONAL HUMANISM Humanism in its proper philosophical construction regards all about the good of Man. This should be understood stretching from man’s origin to his end-finality. If education were to satisfy the requirements of integral humanism, it has to cover the above latitude. In covering the said latitude, emphasis should of necessity be placed on the end of man since according to Aristotle, “the end is the cause and the reason for the beginning. What this means is that with attention properly focused on the end of man, (telos) adequate consideration will of necessity fall on the “Origin and the Process”. In this way, a whole education for the whole man is achieved. Against this background, it is enough to address the Ideology in education and then through it, with it and in it take account for the whole of man by education. This sort of approach to knowledge is what Michael Polanyi has called relational rather than objectivising conception of knower and the known. He stressed that our relationship to a person or thing is primary to our knowing them. To emphasize any other aspect of man will encounter the difficulty of not having a free, easy and coordinated access to the whole of man, leading to reductionism or relativism. What is more? The free conclusion of reductionism or relativism is an attempt to create a chasm (lacuna) between the knower and the known, to cause a partial contact between the knower and the known leading to partial information and partial formation. Striking at the failure of this stuff of epistemology Colin Gunton says “we do not contemplate reality from the outside, from a God-like distance-objectivism-but we indwell the world as part of it and the world indwells us as a whole. Here, knowledge arises out of and is a function of relation. This is akin to what Leopold Senghor calls “reason or knowledge by embrace” where the whole man is open to knowledge and knowledge is available for the whole man: openness of being to being. Notice that all forms of specified and selective contact knowledge is obviously discarnate in orientation and amounts to a rehearsal of the reductionist philosophies of empiricism or relationalism. While exaggerated or exclusive empiricism cannot construct any metaphysics, all extreme rationalism is vitiated in unreality. To strike the balance,

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empirical and non material informational inputs which target man in his material and non material composition must be at issue. In this regard, Colin Gunton observes that all idealist and empiricist epistemologies are doomed attempts to evade reality of the knowing subject by appealing to pure rationality or by delimiting the sphere within which and only within which, there is safe and certain knowledge.14 When education disregards the human subject in his essential composition, it will alongside technical progress promote depersonalization, the spiritual impoverishment and environmental destruction15. In the Christian beginnings in the cathedral schools, humanism in education was achieved through a delicate balance between the stadium, the imperium and the sacerdotium. In which case, it is valid to hold that the search for integral humanism in education is not a very recent enterprise. Ideological Analysis and Interpretation of Formal Education in Nigeria: History, Structure, Objectives and Problems Formal education, that is, education provided by teachers in the context of the school is a received legacy in Nigeria. In fact, before the advent of the missionaries, “the community accepted and supported traditional forms of education as provided by parents in the homes and by priests in religious ceremonies or initiation rites because this was in harmony with the tribe as a whole”16. And so, the history of formal education in Nigeria coincided with the history of missionary evangelization and colonial campaign. Understandably, the schools were among the major instruments used by the missionaries to plant Christianity and to begin a civilizing mission so called, among the natives. Accordingly, “these Christian agents were in the forefront of western education for many years before the inception of colonial administration. The establishment of schools, appointment of teachers and school inspectors devolved on them for many years. Also, they pioneered the drawing of the school curriculum and the promulgation of the first code of Education17. This approach efficiently enchanted the ideological side of education and it thus delivered. Little wonder Bishop Crowder observed that “Education cannot but enlarge and enlighten the idea of those who are brought under its influence; especially, where all the elementary school books are extracts from the Holy Scriptures, inculcating all virtues

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and condemning all vices, and vividly pointing out the folly and superstition of idolatrous worship”18. *

For quite sometime, formal education in Nigeria has been in search of a

permanent or at least viable enabling structure, which will serve human development best. But in the early 80’s, it appeared to have settled for what is popularly called the 6-33-4 system of education. What this means is that all things being equal, a healthy child who has reached the age of reason ‘6-7’ years should be able to start his or her primary school education and is supposed to spend the minimum of 6 years in the primary school, 3 years in the Junior Secondary School and another 3 years in the Senior Secondary School before finally having to spend the minimum of four years in the tertiary institution. It is believed that with the data of knowledge provided at each stage, combined with the available skills, attitudes and values, each student should be capable of self reliance and self-employment and dependable character were he or she to leave school at any stage. What becomes immediately obvious at least in principle in the structure of formal education in Nigeria is that education is not considered to be a transmission of dry material data of information but an affective communication of personal information capable of forming men integrally. Here again, the religious angle of formal education in the country highlights. *

As enshrined in the National Education Policy of 1971 and revised in 1981, the

aims and objectives of Nigerian education must satisfy “the cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains of human development.”19 They include: - the inculcation of national consciousness and national unity. - the inculcation of the right type of values and attitudes for the survival of the individual and the Nigerian society. - the training of the mind in the understanding of the world around.

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the acquisition of appropriate skills, abilities and competencies, both mental and physical as equipment for the individual to live in and contribute to the development of the society20.

In this outline as in theory, a good balance is struck and there is enough emphasis on the ideology in education. But what of the practice? What happens in the field? Indeed having not paid sufficient attention to the aims and objectives of Nigerian education, having misplaced priorities in curriculum emphasis, both character and technical progress were hampered to the nation’s great disadvantage. What is sought for is only the ephemeral promises of education, the satisfactory consequences, the cash value, the status which education could offer and no more. This is what has led to the cult of certificates and no one appears to be worried about the spiritual and moral fibre, the refined sensibilities of the educated man. IDEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIVE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS OF FORMAL EDUCATION IN NIGERIA Human Curiosity to Know Man, among the rest of God’s creatures according to the Christian religion, is created in the image and likeness of God. He therefore shares in a finite proportion most of the attributes of the Deity. But much more important than many others, is that man is ontologically composed of the faculties of reason and will (ratio et volo). These are the symbols of his religious empowerment21 and linkage with the other world. With reason, he shares in the intelligence that is God Himself and is able to make rational discriminations before any choice of action is made. With the will, he actually decides and chooses and acts like God. In these two faculties which actually belong to the Being of God in excelsis, man’s superiority and superintendence over other creatures becomes the more obvious. By reasoning and willing, man transcends himself in autotranscendence22 and in a fashion that is exclusive to him among all corporeal creatures. Indeed, according to Joseph M de Torre, “Man is a creature astride pure spirit. In him, the 2 2

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entire universe is represented, since he is both material and spiritual”. This dual nature, prepares him for the reception and cognition of all objects of knowledge – material and spiritual alike”23. Thus, one need not essay long to demonstrate that man is a religious subject “homo religious”, always anxiously seeking to be connected or identified with the ground of his being. Religion therefore becomes the nature of man and all claims to atheism and irreligion becomes cases for the psychiatry. But again, this same man, in his essential nature disposes a yawning appetite for knowledge. By this is meant that the human mind is capable of knowing and that when confronted with the questions and perplexities of existence, searches for the answers and on arriving at it, at least a little, its intellectuality rejoices in wonder. Aristotle in the first chapter of the book of his metaphysics writes, that “men by nature desire to know. This means that man is inexorably and by passion caught up in the propensity and desire to know. Since man is a unity, his religious tendencies and intellectual tendencies coincide in the one nature. In fact, the tendency to knowledge is only but a stage on the path to the tendency to God, which is the end of religion. Just as in knowledge, the subject knowing and object of knowledge become one, the possession of which education and reason pursue is satisfied in the discovery and possession of God. Therefore, if education in Nigeria will ever be safe and same, useful to man and true, it must aim to the knowledge of God that is “religion” in terms of emphasis on virtues and not liturgy and doctrine. In this way, it becomes the function of religion to criticize errant educational systems as we have in Nigeria. EDUCATION AS AN EVENT PER-SE In the imperative of Genesis, man was called up by his creator to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it and have dominion.”

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Notice that the central point of

this imperative is the issue of dominion. Corresponding this imperative in the modern

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times, Francis Bacon would want men to emerge as “servants and interpreters of nature” and Descartes would charge men to be “Lords and possessors of nature.” 25 As a matter of fact, education is an instrument for the fulfillment and satisfaction of this call to “dominion” and “lordship”. This is true because it is through studies that the secret laws guiding the universe can be broken into, explored and exploited for the good and betterment of man and of the whole creation. The welcome technological events of the computers and aircraft’s are but the outworking of education and studies and the realization of the promised dominion. Considered in this way, it becomes very clear arguably that there is essentially no education that worth the name which is not a religious enterprise. On this point, Onyeidu remarks that “Religion itself is an integral part of human education. In their general aims and objectives, both religion and secular education are directed towards the general well being of man.”

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In actual practice, their

functions are complimentary such that: “without religion, education remains incomplete and defective …without education, religion condemns itself to a continual battle, not only against what is worst in human nature and life, but against much that is best. It turns its face towards ignorance and superstition”. 27 Precisely, because of this education and education related matters should in Nigeria be considered as sacred duties and obligations for man. From another perspective, elementary catechism of most religious faith teaches us that God created us to know and love him in worship. This knowledge and love and worship of God extends beyond prayer and Sunday Mass or service but includes our adventures into the mysteries of existence through a combatant spirit of inquiry. Otherwise religion will prove to be opium, escape or empty spiritualism. Whether in reading or writing, the wisdom of God is being experienced and for this, education assumes the nature of a religious experience. What is being suffered here in Nigeria is undue bifurcation of education and religion. Closely connected with this also is that the religious man is called not to escape the world by flight but to be committed to it by duty. The Second Vatican Council defines this commitment as “the sanctification of the temporal order.”

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There is no other way

according to which man can sanctify the temporal order safe by his work and his work receives direction, magnitude and empowerment through education. Hence Judd and

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Freeman of the University of Chicago, view education “as a generalized mode of attack and reactions to social realities, helping young people to understand well and enough and participate actively in it; to get along with it while working to improve it.” 29 R.N Taylor 30 as well as the Fathers of the second Vatican Council are in tandem to this understanding of education. 31 When Socrates says that “knowledge is virtue” and the book of Proverbs declares that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, they were touching upon the interface of religion and education. What is more, Einstein announced long ago that “at the gate of knowledge, thou must have faith”. But it is the advice of Srila Prabhupada that summarizes it all. He says, “Go On with your university education, but side by side, become competent to know God – that is perfection.” 32 Were one to progress to provide for a system in which religion is presented as a paradigm of formal education, it will appear as if, all the subjects of learning are only symbols X, Y, Z, in a ritual ‘R’ for the advancing of the sacramental truths of Religion ‘SR’. In this context of symbolic rites, ‘school and schooling assume the nature of initiation and examination, the nature of rite of passage”. This sense and relation of knowledge, education and godliness is important to be emphasized to students in Nigeria. CONTENT OF FORMAL EDUCATION Hitherto, a look at the curriculum and content of Nigerian education gives the impression of balance. But recently, questionable items have been, smuggled into the curriculum of some departments. In the primary and secondary schools it is ‘Sex Education’ as against ‘Sexuality Education’. Now, report from The International Conference on Law, Reproductive Health and Human Right held between the 19th – 22nd of August 2003, reveals that: a.

Obnoxious elements on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights have been introduced in the curriculum of 19 medical schools in Nigeria, albeit by inducement and other unwholesome acts as well as teaching and equipping

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them with skills for terminating early pregnancies using Manual and Electrical Vacuum Aspirators (MVA and EVA). b.

that some subjects and skill acquisition have been introduced to the schools of Nursing and Midwifery through ‘IPAS’, the company that produces the above mentioned equipment.

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Courses in Reproductive and Sexual Right have been smuggled into the curriculum of some of the Law faculties of the various universities in the country – without official clearance and approval. The same is also applicable to the Law school. 33

It is obvious that there is a grand collusion in this scheme with people from the Justice, Education, Health and Women Affair ministries. These heinous facts were achieved through inducements (monetary and material) from generous funding by the overseas foundations and organizations including IPAS, MacArthur Foundations, FPIA, Pathfinder UNFPA etc. Hence, we daily see in the practice of what teachers teach and what students are eager to learn in Nigeria, the attraction of secularism especially its pragmatic aspects. But it is important not to base the content of the curriculum on the philosophy of changing values that are dependent on external social change but on the philosophy of the absolutes in human nature which provides for the unchanging universal forms of truth, justice and righteousness”.

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Otherwise the children will suffer from the conflict

that people suffered in England in the 19th Century and the sense of loss, uncertainty and insecurity that is prevalent in the 20th century. When these unchanging values are allowed to determine the content of education and the perspectives of its inquiry, “whether one is reading Physics, Art, or Medicine, he or she makes out of it, a religious experience just as some Christians “have tried to see in the open book of creation, another model of God’s incarnation.”

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Hence not so serious distinctions should be made between the moments

one is involved in actual ritual worship and when he peruses through the pages of a worthy printed matter. In order to fight the encroachment of secularism in the content and context of Nigerian education, planners must insist that at any level of education the work load must be such that all the faculties and powers of man are relatively and proportionally engaged

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sufficiently. This is because proper education requires “instruction or training by which people learn to develop and use their mental, moral and physical powers” effectively.

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Whenever any of these faculties is not properly engaged, then damage is done to man in his religious nature and no gratefulness extended to the infinite being. Decrying this situation of poor content, Akwanya N. points out that “what education we give the younger citizens of this country seems to be postponed until they come to the university. Hence in 1990, JSS 2 students were reading the Incorruptible Judge, Chike and the River, The Drummer Boy, Eze Goes to School and so on. These are really primary school books. And it would appear that consistently the texts offered the students especially in the arts are far below their level and incapable of engaging them mentally to say nothing of bringing out the best in them”. 37 In fact, like religion, the final end of education is the development of man in the society. Hence, C. P. Grooves, the educationist opined that “The ideal educational system is not that which prepares a man to earn his living, but that which prepares a man to live. Surely, life means more than food, surely the body means more than clothes” 38 Education in this country should be ordered to the above emphasis. METHOD OF, AND APPROACHES, TO FORMAL EDUCATION IN NIGERIA A deep consideration for method of schooling is also very important. Method here involves both the method of teaching and method of learning. So far, the education models operative in Nigeria are either liberal in method and thus focuses on personal development and “encourages autonomy and responsibility” or purely Academic in method in which case it strives to encode “ability in logico – deductive reasoning or propositional knowledge”. In some other places, institutions or settings, the “ideological” method is emphasized. This method attempts to use the school to indoctrinate young people into particular ideological positions whether cultural, political or religious. If cultural, it concerns itself with the wider perspectives of social outcomes and ethical dilemmas. Then comes the utilitarian approach. Considered against the backdrop of the religious unity of man who is the subject of education and or schooling, the observed ineffectiveness of education in Nigeria is

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precisely because of this multiple bifurcation. A good education as the kind needed in Nigeria is one which strikes a balance between all these.39 Such an integrated education method will also add and provide for the moral side of the teaching and learning methods. The gospel provides a solid metaphysic for such education method. In the gospel tradition therefore, the teaching and learning methods are like symbols of divine pedagogy. It encourages teaching and learning through and with others, the power of personal reasoning, and choice. What is more, the wider aspects of the utilitarian approach to education are also thoroughly Christian in that the gospel contains several indications to the effect that the stewardship of resources and talents is required. Indeed, a good “combination of these four approaches respects the inalienable uniqueness and worth of every person, the importance of knowledge and understanding, the need for people to stand on their feet in the world and the awareness of the communal nature of both human life and the search for truth. It is only when these four approaches are brought into an intimate appointment can the nation through the organ of education surge forward with promises. 39 Further, a complete cycle of education process includes the teacher and his teaching methods, the learner and his learning methods, and the content being communicated. This can be pictured in a linear chain of teacher – teaching / learning student. To each of the members of this chain, there is a moral dimension that must be taken into account without which the desired effect of the whole process cannot be delivered. See, education is not a dry empirical project, not even exclusively a mental one. There is an intimate connection between the intellect and feelings. To think without feelings would be thinking with a total indifference to the object of thought which would be absurd. To feel without thinking will be almost impossible. From this truism, it does not need much argument to establish that “most of the objects of thought are also objects of desire or dislike and therefore objects of choice. It follows then according to Milton that “all important actions of the intellect has a moral side”. No teaching can be absolutely divorced from the morals. The affections come to school with the intellect.” 40 The teacher should constantly address the moral nature and stimulate moral sentiments, if he wishes to achieve the greatest measure of success.

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An important learning disposition is that it should be done with a religious spirit and seen as another – privileged encounter with the spiritual. Precisely because learning is about encounter with truth, which in turn has to do with goodness, it is not just a mere exercise of intellectual virtues. It involves some moral virtues as necessary condition for its possibility and valued ‘usefulness’. St. Thomas Aquinas held that for proper learning, the virtue of studiousness (a potential part of temperance and specie of modesty) is basic. It not only disposes a person to acquire and extend ones knowledge but also restrains an individual from seeking knowledge and experience useless or harmful

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because lust

gives rise to mental blindness, thoughtlessness and inconstancy which dissipates attention, chastity is necessary for intellectual fertility. 42 ORIENTATIONS OF FORMAL EDUCATION In the Nigerian education of today, there is a total loss of orientation. The orientation is no longer absolute to values as it is to secular, profane and pragmatic consequences. This is secularism at work. Pragmatism and profanity characterize it. “By pragmatism, we mean secular man’s concern with the question; will it work? Secular man does not occupy himself much with mysteries. He is little interested in anything that seems resistant to the application of human energy and intelligence …By profanity we refer secular man’s wholly terrestrial horizon, the disappearance of any supramundane reality.” 43 This prevalent aversion for the non-material is pre-eminent in the education sector such that education has lost all the perspectives of the beyond. What is in practice advanced in Nigerian education is education for utility and efficiency…. Its correlatives include power, health and possession. The paradox of such “civilization is that, lacking in some form of moral and religious sense, it does always destroy itself and man too. An ethics with supernatural sanction is necessary for obtaining and applying power for the benefit of the society and for the selection and discrimination in that use of possessions. American instrumentalism is forcefully influencing the Nigerian education and its myriad influences are “blind to the realities of the spirit, they see and express in man, no more than his material individuality.

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For Lihel, this kind of education is godless and

poses the most serious challenge to the liberation values in the Nigerian society. It gives atheism, some kind of intellectual and moral superiority. Teachers in this context are more or less technicians and facilitators of a social change. The result is that producers are ranked above contemplation, while truth gives way to serviceability and practicability. Suffice it to know that the context of contemporary Nigerian education has been dislocated morally. Lamenting this crisis, Bloesch says that “contemporary education is more and more not in the service of the discovery of truth but in the service of the change. It is not wisdom but technical knowledge that is deemed most important. It is not the opening to the transcendence but social re-construction that is given primary emphasis”.

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In his prophetic caution, Pope

Pius XI speaking about a loss of educational orientation says that it is an extremely important matter not to make any mistake in this question of education, as much as no mistake should be made with regard to man’s final destiny “for it is to this that the entire work of education is directed.

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Any good education programme, to advance

development in Nigeria, must aim at the well being and unity of man. -

It must emphasize perfection of behaviour and decent forms.

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The culture and furnishment of mind.

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The tempering of affections.

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The timely instilling of conscientious principles and seeds of religion. This is the principal value to which every education must orient itself to, because it knits and consolidates the rest where it is lacking, no other aim of education will be realized.

ATTRACTION OF FORMAL EDUCATION IN NIGERIA The African man seeing the “wonders” of the white man’s education was greatly sensitized to wonder. He literally believed the Caucasoid was a spirit. Thus “Bekee wu Agbara”. The use of motorcycles, guns, the writing down and reading of speeches were regarded as white man’s magic. In this way, because the African man is easily attracted to the strange, the magical and spiritual, he went in search of how to learn this new magic. What is more, it was quickly discovered that this new magic also gives status, wealth and

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power which are not non-religious ideas for the African. Thus, the African accepted formal education with a religious disposition. All the fascinations of this new knowledge are considered as signs and symbols of some forces indeed, were seen as spiritual or quasi-spiritual realities. The spirit of this earlier attraction to formal education has to be resurrected and expanded to incorporate moral virtues in the pursuit of education in Nigeria. INDISCIPLINE IN SCHOOLS AND AMONG SCHOOL LEAVERS Having observed much about the religious counterpart of the technical data in every piece of knowledge, and having seen that that other side is gradually being eclipsed, it is important to call in the teaching of moral education as an independent subject to supply for the missing link. Thus the integrity of education among other things depends on its moral content. If it fails in this, then it lacks desired competence and social mobility. For this, Hutchins would insist that every education properly so called should be able to perfect among other things, the spiritual faculty of man. For this, moral education is indispensable because “a prime human need, perhaps as great as the need for good food exercise and relationships is the need to feel a part of something more than oneself, to feel connectedness morally and spiritually47. K.B.C. Onwubiko further pointed out that the victimization of the war and our abrupt exposure to the fast moving materialistic west provide the more reason why the Christian religions/moral education should be systematically and thoroughly taught to restore both the moral and psychological balance of our people. But instead of inaugurating a more strategic moral education for the war-torn and materialistic infested Nigeria, from the 1920-1970’s, the government conspired to arrest the schools from the missions with an abrupt disregard for moral and religious education. In the event of their success, children could go through the schools without developing a moral and religious conscience, necessary for character formation of a good citizen. What is more, “certain new and unwelcome characteristics hitherto foreign to the schools emerged in the behavioural patterns of the products of the state schools. Every imaginable crime became abundantly represented to the detriment of the nation.

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Part of many efforts to awaken the moral consciousness of our people will involve the decision to give back the schools to the missions. This contribution is “something more than the teaching of scripture or the bible 48. The necessity of this option is very high because “it is contradictory for some people to elbow God and religion out of our schools and then turn round to say that we need good citizens” 49. Hasting R. in his Nigerian Studies by Nigerian Missionaries summarized the effect of the absence of religious education in school curriculum saying: “in more than one country in which religious education has been banished from the primary schools, grave observers complain that the idea of duty seems to be suffering an eclipse in the minds of the rising generation, some of them add that in those lands, crime is steadily on the increase. Catechism of civil duty and the like have not hitherto proved very satisfactory substitutes for old teaching about the fear of God. 50” PREVALENCE OF MALPRACTICE Fulfillment or what is called ecstasy of accomplishment is the fruit of a religious spirit. God after working looked back and said, “all I have made they are good.” Such a statement can only emerge from a person who values hard-works and indeed work hard and who would desire that internal satisfaction for a good work. The prevalence of ‘expo’ and malpractices is because fulfillment borne of hard work is gone. People also do not have any value for suffering and effort. They would want it the sharp, escape route. The bible says, “My Father goes on working and so do I.” This spirit of commitment to hard work has to be emphasized again and again in our schools.

INFAMOUS FITS OF FORMAL EDUCATION That we talk of cloning today, of test tube babies, of in vitro-fertilization and many others is thanks to the growth of knowledge. But when knowledge is not moderated, it is very likely to imprison instead of liberate man. The idea of the human dignity, of being made in the image and likeness of God should be our guiding principle in the face of all these experiments. Religion would insist on: -

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Priority of person over things.

-

Of subjects over objects.

-

Of ethics over science.

Hence, that there are today a plethora of such infamous experiments show that the value and premium placed on the human person as a moral subject with dignity so tall and excellent is running down. While some people will argue that this is yet to be a Nigerian problem, matters arising from the technological and medical sectors point to the possible embrace of such realities in Nigeria.

CRITICAL EVALUATION It will be totally wrong to assume that everything about education in arts and sciences is totally about religion or moral matters. Such will amount to the fallacy of improper categorization or false association. It will also lead to a devastating kind of “religionism” which would not be ready to concede any kind of autonomy to other indices of education but would forcefully impose its own categories on them as criteria for credibility. This situation were it to arise would be wrong because there is a considerable level of independence that is proper to any subject area without which it cannot deliver at all. Attempt to force Science, Technology and Arts into being branches of religion would mean degeneration into superstition of the worst kind. Religion is religion, Science is science and Arts is arts. What is rather required is that just as we have Philosophy of medicine, Philosophy of science, Philosophy of education etc. and just as we have Theology of science, of technology and of education, we need also a significant minimum but not over mastering religious and moral censure of the progress of the Sciences and the Arts. This is precisely necessary so that education will respond to the nature of the human subject who is also a moral subject. Indeed, the function which religious criteriology will do in the entire scheme and progress formal education will be a function of inter-adjustment of all these branches of knowledge in order to bring unity in the subject, man and thus effect integral development. See, it has been widely asked, why is it that despite the vast sciences and

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various wisdom’s of this day in Philosophy Astronomy, Geography, Microbiology, Theology, Mathematical Physics, History, etc, there is nevertheless, ‘a tumult among the nation’s among the many scholars, the various inhabitants of the earth, useless divisions slandering, fooleries and murmuring? It is because we have not found our “Thread of Aryannna”: the single science and wisdom of existence that is the unity of all our sciences and wisdom of existence.51 Hence the philosopher of Religion rightly avowed that without some religious criteria:,“useless we find a thread of Aryanna that can lead us out of this labyrinth, a true knowledge of (Human) Culture of a general character cannot be reached; it (our knowledge and meaning of existence thus) finds itself scattered among a mass of disconnected and disoriented data which seems to exclude any ideal. “52 And so, it is in religion that the unity of knowledge comes. Hence, this essay begs to elucidate with Christianity without any prejudice to other religions. In Christ, for instance, one can subordinate all Science and Arts under Christsophia. Rightly defined, Christosophy is the philosophy of Jesus Christ as the symbol of being, for in Christ Jesus everything about existence is understood, known, meant and said, but symbolisically, Christosophy is the sapiential investigation into the science of the meaning and knowledge of everything in Christ Jesus. Little wonder the beginning of the gospel of John reads:“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. Not without this word is anything with life that is with life. The word became flesh and dwelt among us”. 53 As it were, according to Bonachristus, “Christosophy is the highest science of the incarnation of the thought that is existence, into existence, by way of truth and logic of the word of existence.” It is “the new science of all things, per ultima causa, in the cooperating light of the spirit and reason 54. Just as Christianity has been used here, any other religion could supply good model of interpretation too. Another critical area where religious sensitivity and moral sensibility is called for is in the area of development and researches in Science and Technology. While modern education

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without God would emphasize results in terms of development and progress, religion would argue for a more holistic development as we find in the document of Paul VI, Octagesima Adveniens. A development of the body and soul, of spiritual awareness and technical sophistication, of human values and scientific values at once. What it means is that in the sphere of education, religion is important to fight dry pragmatism and incoherent secularism, where faith in the infinite “has been for the most part relegated to the private sphere of life. Religious and moral values no longer permeate society but instead are generally regarded as archaic or even injurious to the social order55. Secularism means not simply openness to the value and goals of the world because that is acceptable but it presumes to enthrone these values and goals as ultimate and so fails. Any education that flatly becomes secularized has failed and is emptied of integral relevance to man56. Secularism is attacking education seriously. There is no doubt that there has been a rising wall of hostility towards Christianity in our public schools today. Indeed, educational establishment, because of the power it wields and its avowed humanistic orientation poses “the most serious challenge to Christian and liberation values in the entire society’57. Education so it seems,… is more and more not in the service of the discovery of truth but in the service of growth and change. It is not wisdom but technical knowledge that is deemed most important. It is not the opening to the transcendent but social reconstructing that is given primary emphasis. This bodes ill for any society, since both social order and progress depend on a metaphysical undergirding”58. In all, it is important to re-instate that if the curriculum, the methods of teaching and the school ethos are based on the philosophy of changing values that are dependent on external social change and not on the philosophy of the absolute; in human nature which provide the unchanging universal norms of truth, justice, righteousness, freedom, pity, mercy, honesty, compassion and clarity, our children will suffer from the conflict that people suffered in England in the 19th century and the sense of loss, uncertainty, and insecurity that is prevalent in the 21st Century.

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CONCLUSION The gist of our argument is that the moral decay in the Nigerian society today can be arrested with an education theory and practice and policy that have serious penchant for religious and moral consideration. And this, without equally emphasizing the other aspects of human reality. The watchword is balance and total acquaintance between man and knowledge inputs. As it were, for proper relational acquaintance between man and his environment via the apparatus of education this need for addressing the whole man through educational inputs is inevitable. By that man feels wholly connected to the world and in it finds final meaning and fulfillment. This is because according to Richard Shames, to feel connectedness, one needed to be morally and spiritually in touch with higher realities, the absence of this causes alienation which is the feeling of being cut off, separate, uninvolved and isolated. This is often accompanied by a sense of meaninglessness which operates as a counter point to any forward thrust in the civil society.59 In the final analysis, an integral education one which is responsible to responsive to the religious or ideology appeal in knowledge would embrace the following: (i) Pay sufficient attention to natural inclinations and (ii) Guarantee moulding of behaviour and decent forms (iii) Provide for the culture and furnishment of mind (iv) The tempering of the affections (vi) The timely instilling of conscientious principles and seeds of religion. This is last; but the principal in value, because it knits and consolidates all the rest. Any person who goes through the domesticity of an integral education as described above would properly be called an educated man. Such a person is one: (i)

Who is enlightened in his interest.

(ii)

Impersonal in judgement.

(iii)

Ready in his sympathy for whatever is just and right.

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(iv)

Effective in the works he sets himself to do

(v)

Willing to lend a hand to anyone in need.

Where a civil society has as its citizens comprising a good number of such educated men of the above typology, development in all considerations, human and material will be the certain result.

References 1.

Brugger, W., “Ideology” in Philosophical Dictionary Washington, Gonzaga University Press, 1972, p.139.

2.

Nwabuisi, E.M., Philosophy of Nigerian Education In Modern Times, Etuokwu Pub., Onitsha, 1992, p.4.

3. Ibid. 4.

An excerpt from Plato’s second work on education called The Laws. At the invitation of the tyrant of Syracuse Dionysuis, Plato tried to implement the ideal system of education which he proposed in the Republic but when that failed, he abandoned it and in The Laws produced an educational system which he described as ‘the best in present circumstances.

5.

Adaptation from Doctrines of the Great Educators R.R. Rusk, 2nd edn. Macmillan, 1957, chap. 6, ‘Milton’.

6. Comenuis for one (1592-1670) believed that education should follow the lead of ‘nature’ and that men should learn everything because one never knew to what task God would call an individual. 7.

Schofield, H., The philosophy of Education: An Introduction; London, George Allen and Unwin LTD, 1972, p.31.

8.

It is important to record that religion as used in religion-in- education is not strictly about Man-God relationship or about special actions such as rites, prayers and acts of mercy etc. While these may be included, they do not exhaust the idea used herein. Suffice it to note that religion as employed here is about “finite-Infinite relationship; the particular nature of the infinite viz; personal or impersonal, notwithstanding.

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9.

Ghandi, M.K., “The eight blunders that leads to violence in society” quoted in Mooney L.A. et al., Understanding Social Problems, Minneapolis, West Pubs., 1997, p. 113.

10.

Gunton C., “Knowledge and Culture: Towards an fiore, H Epistemology of the concrete,” in Montefiore, H., The Gospel And Contemporary Culture, London, Mowbray Pubs. Co.

11. Ibid. 12.

Aristotle, Quoted with great approval by Pope Pius XI, in Encyclical Letter, Christian Education for the Youth.

13.

Gunton, C. op. cit, p.85.

14.

Ibid, p. 92.

15.

Collier, J. “Contemporary Culture and Role of Economics in Montefiore H. (ed) Op. cit, p. 103.

16.

Farant J.S., Principles and Practice of Education, London, Longman, 1964, P.369.

17.

Onyeidu, S.O., “Religion and western education in Igboland. The Anglican Missionary Experience.” In Nigeria journal of Theology, June 2003, vol.17,p 70.

18.

Crowther M., in an unpublished paper entitled “Brief statements exhibiting the character of the Bight, 1874, CMS. Ca z04.

19.

Nwabuisi E.M op. cit., p.118.

20.

Ibid, pp.119-120.

21. Symbols of Religious empowerment means in this context, powers of the soul with which man reaches out to the beyond. 22. Auto-transcendence refers to the capacity of man to rise above himself and his thought in other to make them consistent. 23.

Torre, J., Christian Philosophy, Vera Rayes, Philippines, 1980, p. 194.

24.

Cf. Gen. 1:26-28.

25.

Izunwa, M, “Harnessing The Youth Potential. An Organic Education Strategy for the year 2000” in The Chronicler Magazine, Vol. 03, 1998 p.51.

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26.

Onyeidu, S. O., op. cit, p.67.

27.

Milford, H., Religious Education, London, Oxford University Press, 1928, p.193.

28.

Cf. Christi Fideles Laici.

29.

Quoted in, Izunwa M., Harnessing…” op. cit, p. 50.

30.

Toylor, R.W., Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction p.5.

31.

Gravissimum Educationis, Preface 28th Oct. 1965.

32.

Srila Prabhupada in The Hare Krsna Challenge: Exposing a Misdirected Civilization, International Society for Krsna Consciousness, Bombay, 1990 p.61.

33.

Report of the International Conference on Law, Reproductive Health and Human Right-Held in NICON NOGA Hotel Abuja on 19th-22nd August, 2003. pp. 3-4.

34. Ashraf S.A., in B. O’Keeffe (ed) Schools For Tomorrow, Talmen, 1988, p.71. 35.

Ballet, I., et al (eds), The Earth Beneath: A Critical Guide to Green Theology, SPCIC, Britain, 1992, p.91.

36. Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary, p.200. 37.

Akwanya N., “Intellectual Discipline in the Seminaries” in The Chronicler Magazine, No. 1 1997-98, op. cit, p.22.

38.

Fred W. Dodds, Nigerian Studies by Nigeria Missionaries, London, the Holborn Press, 1919, p.83.

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39. Watson, B., “Education and the Gospel” in H. Montefiore(ed) The Gospel and Contemporary Culture, Mow bray, New York, 1992, pp. 129-146. 40.

Milton, S.G., The Seven Laws of Teaching, Advance Ministries Pub., Umuahia, 1954, pp. 94 – 95.

41.

ST. IIa. IIae. q 166. a. 2c.

42.

S. T. IIa Ilac q. 153 a. 5c.

43.

Pratt V., Religion And Secularism, Macimillan, London, 1970, p. 2.

44.

Maritain J., The Person and the Common Good, Indiana University Press, Notre Dame, 1966, p. 91.

45.

Bloesch D.G., Crumbling Foundations, Zondervan Pub., London, 1984, p. 65.

46.

Pius XI Encyclical, Christian Education for the Youth, No. 93.

47.

Shames R., and C. Power, Healing With Mind Power, Rodale Press, London, p. 166.

48.

Pope Pius XI, Encyclical, Christian Education of the Youth No. 93.

49.

Education: 1971 Easter Joint Pastoral Letters of the Cath. Bishop’s of ECS of Nigeria, Tabansi Press, Onitsha, 1971, p. 14.

50.

Fred Dodds, op. cit p. 101.

51. Bonachristus, Per Christum Dominum Nostrum, no publisher, Enugu, 1997, p. 1. 52. Cassirrer, Saqqio Sull’uomo, An Essay on Man, Armado, Rome, 1968, p. 75. 53. Jn. 1: 1 ff; 8:58, Rev. 1:8; 3:14; Col. 1:15.

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54. Bonachristus, op. cit p. 4. 55. Bloesch D.G., Crumbling Foundations, Zondervan, Michigan, 1984 p. 37. 56. Ibid. 57. Christianity Today, 16, February 18, 1972, p. 27. 58. While process theology admittedly sees the need for an overarching metaphysical vision, it is pursued at the price of denying the reality of the supernatural. The only transcendence that is affirmed is transcendence within immanence. By giving priority to becoming over being, process thought which habours secularism is admirably suited to the technological milieu. 59. Shalmes, R., op. cit., P.166.

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