HISTORY NATURE OF INDIGENOUS EDUCATION

 NATURE OF INDIGENOUS EDUCATION 

 

Indigenous education represents the type of education offered in the pre-literate era, within the community, by community members who possessed specialised skills or abilities in various fields of human endeavour. In most communities, prior to the introduction of formal education, boys were brought up to take to whatever occupation their fathers engaged in. In some other cases, the boys were sent to other masters as apprentices to learn various vocations and life etiquette. 

 

Although occupations varied accord ing to the geographical areas in Nigeria, the major ones were farming, trading, craft work, fishing, cat tle rearing, wine tapping, traditional medicine and black-smithing. The boys also engaged in such other training activities as archery, tree climbing and wrestling. Intellectual training for them consisted of their sitting quietly beside their fathers at meetings and listening attentively to learn the process of such tasks and skills as arbitration of cases, oratory, wise sayings and use of proverbs. 

 

All these stimulated their sense of rationality. Girls were often expected to stay back at home to learn domestic and other chores such as cook ing, sweeping, weeding the farmlands, hair weav ing, decorations of the body, dye production; and the like from their mothers. As in the case of the boys, the girls did almost exactly what their mothers trained them to do. Generally, therefore, in spite of geo-political variations, traditional or indigenous education in most parts of Nigeria trained individu als to fit usefully into their society by learning and practising economic skills for self-sustenance; adapting to their role expectations and contributing to the development of their society. 

 

Although the traditional education offered by the community was comprehensive such that it provided training in physical, character, intellectual, social and voca tional development, it however had its limitations. For one thing, in the absence of writing, people depended on the power of their memories to facilitate the retention and transmission of all learned ideas to future generations. But memory could fail, and in the event of the death of a custodian of some useful information or skill, all was lost. There were, however, little or no cases of unemployment.