SOCIAL SCIENCE EDUCATION FOR SELF-RELIANCE

Abdur-Rahman Olalekan Olayiwola

Department of Political Science

Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria

E-mail: nusramurana@yahoo.co.uk

ABSTRACT

This paper on Social Science Education for Self-Reliance canvasses support for the integration of Interdisciplinary Studies, Entrepreneurial Education and (Training, Sustainability Education, among a host of other Social Scientific Disciplines in the curriculum through restructuring with a view to enhance sustainable national development, engender critical, creative, liberated and self-reliant citizens for development and self-determination. It is also aimed at supplementing and complimenting Nigeria’s philosophy of education which is based on the integration of the individual into a sound and effective citizen and equal educational opportunities for all citizens of the nation at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, both inside and outside the formal school system. While attempting to ensure that the conceptual horse of Social Science Education is put in front of the areal cart so that scholarly investigation is hung on a stronger intellectual reed, the paper discusses the concepts of Social Science Education, Self-Reliance, Entrepreneurial Education, Sustainability Education, Sustainable National Development, the issues of Unemployment and Under-employment and the role of schools and Universities in producing Social Science Education Graduates for Self-Reliance and Sustainable National Development. It wonders, in fact, if students bother to question why a set of intellectual activity is referred to as a discipline! By extension, the paper also wonders if we as teachers sometimes question the significance if not the relevance of some of the things we teach. It takes the Social Sciences as examples and asks why it is thought necessary for us to produce graduates in Economics/Economics Education, Political Science/Political Science education, Geography/Geography Education, Sociology or Psychology. Why not a graduate in Social Science/Social Science Education where Social Science Constitutes a balanced mix of sub-sets of the set of discipline we presently call the Social Sciences/Social Sciences Education. The paper finally recommends, among a host of other germane recommendations that:

1. Any worthwhile attempt which is directed at ensuring greater utility of the Social sciences/Social Sciences Education by public and private sectors policy makers will have to involve a process of change which will affect both the Social Scientists/Educators, the Universities, Research Centres and Institutes, and the policy makers in the Nigerian Society.
2. Social Science Education for Self-Reliance should enable learners to change from dependence syndrome to independence and inter-dependent cooperation with others.
3. Self-Reliance is key to poverty reduction in Nigeria
4. Education looses its true meaning and purpose where learners graduate without requisite desirable knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and competences
5. Entrepreneurship Education should be integrated into the .curriculum to provide students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success in a variety of settings.

Education should stress on concepts of equality and responsibility to give service which goes with any specia¹ ability – provision of legal services, media, communication production and public relations including advertising, medical health services, designing and printing, carpentry, plumbing, welding, animal husbandry, food production, culinary studies, hospitality, catering for daily consumption, mechanical Ventures, Public/Private Administration/local Government Consultancy, Planning/conveyancing, surveying, or academic pursuits, to counteract temptation to intellectual arrogance, despising non- academic abilities.

• Education for Sustainability or Sustainability Education should be encouraged in all its  ramifications.
•  Government machinery and institutions should provide leadership in guiding and rallying
  the people to face challenges of sustainable national development with enthusiasm in
  confidence.
• It is imperative that the field of Social Science Education be permitted to flourish
  alongside other interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary disciplines and sub-fields.   Should this
  not evolve both the field of Social Science Education in general and Education in
  particular, will be poorer for it.
• Finally, it is contended that without effective leadership, slogans of self-help and self-
  reliance will be useless to people and sustainable national development.