CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Learning occupies a central position in man’s existence and this is externally oriented. Man’s interaction with this environment induces a change in his behavior resulting from experience. The extent of interaction with the environment is affected by number of personality factors. Continuous belongingness to the society demands a degree of conformity.

Unlike the past centuries, the 20th century saw an unparalled growth in the world economy, even though in the inter-war era. The world had since turned its back on the primitive ways of life. Characteristics of the 20th century have access to international capital flow, technology, cheaper imports, larger export market and increased competition, division of labor and adoption of comparative cost advantage principle.

Some countries, especially in Asia, benefit by having their per capita incomes moving quickly towards levels in the industrial countries since 1970, all resulting from the perceived significance of globalization.

Consequently, a new world order emerges, signaling thereby an integration of power relations.

Globalization is portrayed in the economists’ picture as a situation whereby artificial barriers such as tariffs, quotas and exchange controls are done away with followed by the environment of liberal market forces heralding subsequently a culture and era of free flow of investments, characterized by shared artifacts, identical production processes and tastes.

Globalization is a process, which has affected many areas of human life, one of those being education.

In the 20thcentury, many developing countries have experienced growth in the educational facilities available to them due to the entry of institutions from the West. Some believe that this process is an invaluable opportunity for the people of the developing countries to raise their skills and standards of education.

Through globalization of education, which is being knowledge transfer from the Western countries into developing countries, is intended to improve the skills and capabilities of the people receiving it.

For a developing economy, globalization as it stands today is one of the few tools that can be used to attain high level of development and economic stability while for a developed nation, globalization will be one of the tools to use in order to remain afloat of the world ocean, especially in the midst of economic adversities, disasters both natural and created, outbreak of diseases, war, etc.

Education is undergoing constant changes under the effects of globalization. The effects of globalization on education bring rapid developments in technology and communications are foreseeing changes within school systems across the world as ideas, values and knowledge, changing the roles of students and teachers, and producing a shift in society from industrialization towards an information-based society. The rise of a global society driven by technology and communication developments are shaping children, the future citizens of the world into ‘global citizens’, intelligent people with a broad range of skills and knowledge to apply to a competitive, information based society.

The future of countries often lies within their ability to compete in a global market where industrial based economies are giving way to knowledge based industries, realising the importance of knowledge, skills and the intellectual capacity to meet the challenges of accelerated change and uncertainty.

Education is a lifelong learning and training process, developing transferable skills and knowledge that can be applied to competitive markets where knowledge and information is being traded as a commodity.

The introduction of technology into the classroom is changing the nature of delivering education to students is gradually giving way to a new form of electronic literacy, more programs and education materials are made available in electronic form, teachers are preparing materials in electronic form and students are generating papers, assignments and projects in electronic form.

According to a UN survey (2002), many people lost their jobs, other saw their communities disintegrated; some even felt that their identity is at stake. Therefore, for developing nations like Nigeria, the aspect of ICT and globalization that should concern them is the inequality problems and the unbalanced distribution of benefits are shared out all over the world.

This was buttressed in the world in the words of Kofi Annan (1999) “the internet holds the greatest promise to humanity ever known. The internet has a tool for long distance learning and universal access to quality education”.

Subsequently, technology is foreseeing a change in the education environment towards a reliance on electronic sources to deliver material. With suchchanges and the emergence of video conferencing and the Internet, the barriers of distance are beingbroken down at a rapid rate, due to the key aspect of globalization.

According to Mustafa, Kemal Ataturk (2004) “in order to stave off covetousness, greed and spite, citizens world over must be educated’’ this accretion tells more of how education can egalitarian society united, strong and self-reliant nation, great and dynamic nation on education  especially Nigeria. The society today with its level of advancements requires the same level of expertise for things to move at par and this can only be brought about by education.

At this junction, it must be stated unequivocally that in this information age, globalization exerts major impacts on the learning and teaching process among others, hence it can alter the outcome of educational input and outputs.

Greatly influence of globalization has help to restructure their perception of the subject matter, economics and its place in the 21st century.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The knowledge of economics and the ability to apply it to significant problems and issues are essential elements of responsible citizenship in a democratic society. Citizens must be able to comprehend and use basic economic concepts in order to perform adequately as producers, consumers, investors, critiques, analysts, commentators, agitators’ voters in public election. Widespread improvements in the ability to perform these roles will yield enormous benefits to individual and the nation.

However, the teaching of economics in Nigerian Secondary Schools does not come easy. Such hard knots includes; students interest and commitment to study, inadequate qualified and professional teachers, employment and use of crude materials for teaching, governmental non-support in terms of provision of modern tools, family background, societal and environmental factors, non-existence of a serene environment for learning, etc. All these problems has eaten deep into our educational system thereby leaving it miles behind when compared with other nations of the world in the same category with Nigeria. Consequently, to education and all its challenges, it is also highly imperative that the teachers and the students should learn how to use and integrate the new technologies, and they should be encouraged to develop curiosity in them.

Though, the cost of these information and communication technologies are exorbitant, the cost of not using them in education is by far higher, because denial of access to information, communications and innovativeness. It means keeping the next generation in the same cycle of poverty and ignorance. It also means losing one of the easiest ways of supporting employment.

Therefore, the research work will examine the impact of globalization on the teaching and learning process of economics as a subject.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this research is stated as follows:

·         To determine the level of educational development before the advent of Globalization.

·         To ascertain the essence of Globalization in education.

·         To examine the effects of Globalization on education.

·         To determine the effects of Globalization on teaching and learning in secondary schools.

RESEARCH QUESTION

The research questions that will be generated in this course of study are: -

·         What is the level of educational development before the advent of Globalization?

·         What is the aim of Globalization to education?

·         What is the impact of globalization on education?

·         What are the effects of Globalization on the teaching and learning of economics in senior secondary schools?

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Ho: - There is a significant difference between globalization and the teaching and learning of economics in secondary school.

H1: - There is no significant difference between globalization and the teaching and learning of economics in secondary school.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The findings of the research work will be of help to teachers, students, school management and educational planners as well as the entire society. It will guide the teachers on the need to instil appropriate knowledge into the students at the right stage and at the right place. It keeps educational planners alert of the pros and cons of Globalization and education.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The research study will look at the assessment of the impact of globalization on the teaching and learning of economics in Nigerian secondary schools, a case study of selected secondary schools in Lagos state. Because of time constraint, This study will be delimited to the research design in the five [4] randomly selected secondary schools in Ikoyi local council government area of Lagos state, namely, St. Gregory’s college, Aunty Ayo senior secondary school, Ilado community high school and holy child college. Out of the four randomly selected schools, two hundred [200] students offering economics will be randomly selected in all.Research instrument will be the questionnaire, while a non-parametric test will be used to present the data.

DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The research tries to look into the entire country Nigeria but due to some factors, such as time constraint, inadequate supply of data, hostility, illiteracy, unwilling respondents and finance, the research work is limited to four senior secondary schools in Ikoyi local government of Lagos state as a case study.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

GLOBALIZATION: it refers to the act or process of globalizing: the state of being globalized; especially the development of an increasingly integrated global economy.

ECONOMICS: it is defined as a science which study human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.

TECHNOLOGY:  it is a systematic way of doing things or solving problem for the good of mankind.

COMMUNICATION: it is the transfer of messages between two parties and it being understood by both parties, i.e. the sender and the receiver.

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