EFFECTIVE METHODOLOGY IN PEDAGOGY: TEACHING GOVERNMENT AND CIVIC EDUCATION - Forums
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EFFECTIVE METHODOLOGY IN PEDAGOGY: TEACHING GOVERNMENT AND CIVIC EDUCATION FOR EXTERNAL EXAMINATIONS
Government and Civic Education are interrelated senior secondary school subjects in the area of political topics. Unlike Government that is being offered by the Art and Commercial students, Civic Education is a compulsory subject for all the students in the departments including Science class.
The essence of Government as a subject and Civic Education being made compulsory in school is to develop civil competence and leadership skills among the students, which is aimed towards producing self-reliant citizens and promoting nation-building.
Civic Education and Government classes are always interactive and fun to be in; but the outcomes of the external examinations do not mostly speak well on the interesting nature of the two subjects; as the candidates’ weaknesses on the subjects in WASSCE according to the Chief Examiner’s Report always reflect lack of proper understanding of the demands of the questions and lack of proper understanding of the subject matter ( https://www.waeconline.org.ng/e-learning/Civic/civic224mc.html https://www.waeconline.org.ng/e-learning/Government/Govt227mw.html ).
In this light, it is imperative to highlight some of the facts to be considered by educators in the teaching of Government and Civic Education as identified below:
1. Lack of Proper Understanding of the Demands of the Question: According to the WAEC Chief Examiner’s Report, many candidates did not understand the demands of the questions. For example, most candidates resorted to mere mentioning of points instead of giving detailed explanation where required.
The teacher should educate the students enough to know that whenever words like state, outline, highlight and identify are used to ask a question in either Government or Civic Education, the students are required not only to state the points only but should endeavour to explain the stated point. Whenever the words explain, trace or discuss is used in question, the students are required to explain deeper with examples. It is worthy to note that the students should be charged to attempt the questions they can answer best. They can also give more than required points to a question being asked, as the best answers will be recorded for such candidate.
2. Lack of Proper Understanding of the Subject Matter: According to the WAEC Chief Examiner’s Report, many candidates did not understand the specifics of the subject matter which may be as a result of poor coverage of the curriculum. Sometimes, the poor performance of the candidates might not be as a result of poor coverage of the curriculum alone but as a result of twisting of questions. By this, it is important to educate and always give the students the various interpretations to the meaning of every subheading under discussion like: features, characteristics, attributes, traits or components to mean the same; forms, mode or kinds to mean the same; merits, advantages, successes, achievements or strengths to mean the same; demerits, disadvantages, failures, barriers or hindrances to mean the same.
3. Noting Key-points and Breakdown of Points: The keywords or salient points of every concepts under discussion should be fully noted and discuss with the students. For example, the key points of Faudalism is “ownership of land” while that of Oligarchy is “few rule”. When those key points are fully noted by the students and breakdown to the lowest level of understanding to the point of using even local language, the students tend to recollect those facts easily with amazing performance. Breakdown of the points to the lowest level also improves the communication skill of the students.
4. Commonly Repeated Questions: it is very important for the students to review the SS1 and SS2 scheme of work, as most of the topics are being set as questions in the external examinations like WAEC and NECO. Topics like the Pre-colonial administration in Nigeria, Colonialism, Constitutional and political development in Nigeria are repeated questions every year.
5. The 5Rs on Read, Recall, Retain, Repeat and Report: It is not enough to spoon-feed the students through teaching. The students should be assigned a group project in which the report will be presented in the classroom. In the process of preparing the students for examination, reading culture should also form an integral part of the teaching processes. The group project should challenge the students to read their books, recall and retain what they had read, repeat and report the findings of their assigned projects through presentation. This will stimulate their long term memory and improve their communication skill in their external examination and thereafter.
When these five matters discussed above are meticulously being taken into consideration by the teacher, it will go a long way towards helping the students to come out in flying colour in their external examinations.