In this section, we answer some of the most commonly asked questions on this topic.
1. What is orderliness in civic education?
Orderliness is the quality or habit of appreciating and systematic way with the aim of achieving set goals. It is the condition where things follow laid down procedures or are properly arranged.
Six ways of exhibiting orderliness in the society include:
- Decorum in habits, relations, actions, programs at the bus stop.
- Queuing culture by obeying rules that promote orderliness like queuing at the ATM points.
- Obeying traffic regulations or rules when driving.
- Listening skills and politeness in the public.
- Tolerance of oppositions i.e, tolerating opposing views, religions and social critics.
- Due process and justice; allowing thing to follow their proper order.
2. What is cultism in civic education?
Cultism is a form of organization whose activities are not only exclusively kept away from the knowledge of others but such activities are carried out at odd hours of the day and they often clash with the accepted norms and values of everyday life.
3. What is value in civic education?
Value is the esteemed quality in which a person attaches to certain ideas, beliefs or principles.
Positive values include gratitude, truth-telling, hard work, and obedience while examples of negative values are anger, pride, laziness, discrimination, lust, and gluttony.
4. What are civic dispositions?
Civic dispositions are defined as the citizen traits necessary for democracy (e.g. tolerance, public-spiritedness, civility, critical mindedness and willingness to listen, negotiate, and compromise).
5. What are civic skills?
Civic skills refer to citizens’ ability to analyze, evaluate, take and defend positions on public issues, and to use their knowledge to participate in civic and political processes (e.g. to monitor government performance, or mobilize other citizens around particular issues).
7. What are the promising approaches to civic education?
For this type of learning to be effective, schools should do the following:
- Encourage student participation in school governance.
- Provide instruction in government, history, law, and democracy.
- Incorporate discussion of current local, national, and international issues and events into the classroom, particularly those that young people view as important to their lives.
- Encourage students’ participation in simulations of democratic processes and procedures.
- Design and implement programs that provide students with the opportunity to apply what they learn.
- Offer extracurricular activities that provide opportunities for young people to get involved in their schools or communities.
8. What are the advantages of civic education?
Here are some of its benefits:
- Strengthens the basic understanding of our structures of government, along with related processes of legislation and policy making
- Creates a positive school climate that supports students feeling socially, emotionally and physically safe.
- Lowers high school dropout rates.
- Improves government transparency.
- Enhances “21st century competencies” that are valued by colleges, universities and employers.
- Increases voting and discussions of politics in the home.
- Enhances democratic accountability of elected officials.
9. What are the disadvantages of civic education?
- It could be taught by biased people who are pushing you to advocate their own self-interested agenda.
- It occupies your time, preventing you from focusing on other things that may be more important in your life.
- It may sway you towards caring too much about the government and too little about your independent activities unrelated to government.
9. What is Civic Education: What Makes Students Learn?
It is a book by Richard G. Niemi, Jane Junn published by Yale University Press in the year 2005. The book contains details of what American high school students know about politics and the government and how they obtain this information.
Civic education is an important and effective tool that facilitates the participation of citizens in democratic processes and development processes. This tool helps citizens speak both on their own behalf and within a certain group. Civic participation is built on the protection of individual and collective rights and on ensuring understanding of the obligations of each citizen to the society of which he/she is a part.
READ ALSO: Aims and objectives of Nigerian education
Legit.ng published the list of objectives of Nigerian education. Why do Nigerians go to school and what do they want to achieve by being educated? The direct answer would be getting a good-paid job. However, one could name other aims like gaining knowledge, becoming civilized to decide how best to live, etc. Read more in the article.
Source: Legit.ng
