The Teaching Geography From The Ninth Year School Level In Nigeria: A Challenge To Nigerian Geographers

Teaching Geography From The Ninth Year School Level In Nigeria: A Challenge To Nigerian Geographers

Abstract

Geography which is widely recognized as very essential in making a child to appreciate his environment, and learn how to live peacefully with it, has however, being substituted with social studies for long. The consequences of such shift on the overall teaching and learning of Geography in general and the depth of knowledge of even those that study it remain generally not documented for many years. This paper examined the challenges of this change. This research was conducted during the 2011/2012 academic session in FCE Kano, Kano state and involved 360 students that graduated from senior school between 2003-2011. The result obtained indicates that for Human Geography pass and fail 36% and 64% respectively. For Physical, it was 32% and 68% respectively for pass and fail. For Regional it was 33% and 67% for pass and fail while for Map work only 28% of them passed and 72% failed. It was concluded that the student?EUR(TM)s depth knowledge was generally weak and most probably reflect relatively shorter period over which they were exposed to the discipline during the last 3 years of secondary school period. Likewise, it?EUR(TM)s appears that long period of learning social studies have not equipped the student?EUR(TM)s fundamental thematic Geographical issues. It?EUR(TM)s recommended that the teaching of Geography in Nigerian schools should be re- introduced back at the very 1st year of primary school education. A model for such re-introduction has been proposed, and is referred to as GEOPYRAMID.