THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCHOOL MAPPING AND ACCESS TO QUALITY EDUCATION

posted on November 21, 2019

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Quality education is now an issue of global concern. As the Nigerian stakeholder’s attention is increasingly focused on the outcomes of education, policy makers have undertaken a wide range of reforms to improve schools and schooling, ranging from setting new standards and tests to redesigning of schools, new curricula and new instructional strategies. Rising expectations about what students should know and be able to do, break-through in research on how children learn, and the increasing diversity of the student population have all put significant pressure on the knowledge and skill teachers must have to achieve the ambitious goal demanded of public education. That goal is to ensure that children of all backgrounds master a demanding core curriculum and other materials that will prepare them to assume their civic and social responsibilities in a democratic society, and be able to compete within the global economy.

It is expected that educational system will produce the quality and quantity of human resources required for the economy’s growth using the right mix inputs. Ibukun (2009) aimed that no nation or society can rise above the quality of her education. The immeasurable contribution of education in the development process has left a burning desire in every government to increase access to education for all her citizens. (Ibukun, 2003; Brock, 2006) opined that investigation in basic education and training is an ingredients to human capacity building such capacity, they noted is the foundation needed to realize increased productivity, most importantly technological innovation. The direction of education toward national economic growth and development was an important basic for the introduction of Universal Basic Education (U.B.E) programme. Hence education opportunities and their expansion provide the base for national economic development, Individual economic welfare and also narrows social inequalities by promoting a meritocratic basic for status attainment in which the talented can rise to appropriate position in the economy regardless of social background (Hunnum and Buchmann, 2005).

According to Tolutope (2011) more than 40 years ago, the nations of the world speaking through universal declaration of human rights, asserted that everyone has a right to education. Despite notable efforts by countries around the globe to ensure the right to education for all, the following realities persist: more than one hundred million children have no access to basic schooling; more than nine hundred and sixty million adults, two-thirds of whom are women are illiterate, and functional illiteracy is a significant problem in all countries, industrialized and developing; more than one third of the world’s adults have no access to the printed knowledge, new skills and technologies that could improve the quality of their lives and help them shape and adapt to social and cultural change, and more than one hundred million children and countless adults fail to complete basic education programmes.

The world faces daunting problems, notably mounting debt burdens, the threat of economic stagnation and decline, and rapid population growth, widening economic disparities among and within nations, war, occupation, civil strife, violent crime, the preventable deaths of millions of children and widespread environmental degradation. These problems constrain eorts to meet basic learning needs, while the lack of basic education among a significant proportion of the population prevent societies from addressing such problems with strength and purpose. The World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal, April 2000) was the first and most important event in education at the dawn of the new century. By adopting the Dakar Frame work for Action, the 1100 participants of the Forum reairmed their commitment to achieving Education For All by the year 2015 and entrusted UNESCO with the overall responsibility of coordinating all international players and sustaining the global momentum. The Education for All (EFA) movement is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adult. At the world education forum (Dakar, 2000) 164 governments pledged to achieve EFA and identified six goals to be made by 2015. Government, development agencies, civil society and the private sector are working together to reach the EFA goals. The Dakar frame work for action mandated UNESCO to coordinate these partners in cooperation with the four other convenors of the Dakar forum (UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank). As the leading agency, UNESCO focuses its activities on five key areas: policy dialogue, monitoring, advocacy, mobilization of funding and capacity development.