ABSTRACT
The study was on the relationship between school mapping and access to quality education. The aim is to determine whether school mapping affects access to quality education. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey design and sampled 125 teachers from secondary schools in Kaura and Jemma Local Government Area of kaduna State. The study raised five research questions and two hypothesis data were obtained using a structured questionnaire designed by the researcher. The mean and chi-square were used to analyse the data. Results showed that schools in Kaura and Jema’a have poor school mapping. Also, it was gathered that poverty affects access to quality education. The study recommended that government should ensure that schools are located at trekable distance, also efforts should be made by the government and other individuals to provide infrastructures to quality education. The study therefore concludes that significant relationship exists between school mapping and access to quality education in Kaura and Jema’a Local Government Areas of Kaduna State.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Quality education is now an issue of global concern. As the Nigerian stakeholder’s attention is increasingly focused on the outcomes of education, policy makers have undertaken a wide range of reforms to improve schools and schooling, ranging from setting new standards and tests to redesigning of schools, new curricula and new instructional strategies. Rising expectations about what students should know and be able to do, break-through in research on how children learn, and the increasing diversity of the student population have all put significant pressure on the knowledge and skill teachers must have to achieve the ambitious goal demanded of public education. That goal is to ensure that children of all backgrounds master a demanding core curriculum and other materials that will prepare them to assume their civic and social responsibilities in a democratic society, and be able to compete within the global economy.
It is expected that educational system will produce the quality and quantity of human resources required for the economy’s growth using the right mix inputs. Ibukun (2009) affirmed that no nation or society can rise above the quality of her education. The immeasurable contribution of education in the development process has left a burning desire in every government to increase access to education for all her citizens. (Ibukun, 2003; Brock, 2006) opined that investigation in basic education and training is an ingredients to human capacity building such capacity, they noted is the foundation needed to realize increased productivity, most importantly technological innovation. The direction of education toward national economic growth and development was an important basic for the introduction of Universal Basic Education (U.B.E) programme. Hence education opportunities and their expansion provide the base for national economic development, Individual economic welfare and also narrows social inequalities by promoting a meritocratic basic for status attainment in which the talented can rise to appropriate position in the economy regardless of social background (Hunnum and Buchmann, 2005).
According to Tolutope (2011) more than 40 years ago, the nations of the world speaking through universal declaration of human rights, asserted that everyone has a right to education. Despite notable efforts by countries around the globe to ensure the right to education for all, the following realities persist: more than one hundred million children have no access to basic schooling; more than nine hundred and sixty million adults, two-thirds of whom are women are illiterate, and functional illiteracy is a significant problem in all countries, industrialized and developing; more than one third of the world’s adults have no access to the printed knowledge, new skills and technologies that could improve the quality of their lives and help them shape and adapt to social and cultural change, and more than one hundred million children and countless adults fail to complete basic education programmes. The world faces daunting problems, notably mounting debt burdens, the threat of economic stagnation and decline, and rapid population growth, widening economic disparities among and within nations, war, occupation, civil strife, violent crime, the preventable deaths of millions of children and widespread environmental degradation. These problems constrain efforts to meet basic learning needs, while the lack of basic education among a significant proportion of the population prevent societies from addressing such problems with strength and purpose.
The World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal, April 2000) was the first and most important event in education at the dawn of the new century. By adopting the Dakar Frame work for Action, the 1100 participants of the Forum reaffirmed their commitment to achieving Education For All by the year 2015 and entrusted UNESCO with the overall responsibility of coordinating all international players and sustaining the global momentum. The Education for All (EFA) movement is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adult. At the world education forum (Dakar, 2000) 164 governments pledged to achieve EFA and identified six goals to be made by 2015. Government, development agencies, civil society and the private sector are working together to reach the EFA goals. The Dakar frame work for action mandated UNESCO to coordinate these partners in cooperation with the four other convenors of the Dakar forum (UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank). As the leading agency, UNESCO focuses its activities on five key areas: policy dialogue, monitoring, advocacy, mobilization of funding and capacity development.
The international consultation of Non-Governmental organizations, Dakar (2000) provides the opportunity to take stock of the achievements, the lessons and the failures of the past decade. The most disappointing lessons are that the objectives from Jomtien have not been achieved. Yet for 120 million children right to education is violated everyday, leaving them trapped in poverty. Other children in school lack teachers, class rooms and or books for effecting learning, this means that their education is cut short.
The world education forum provides an opportunity to deliver on the commitments to quality education for all governments and international agencies have to make a concerted effort to mobilize political will and financial resources. Nearly 300 NGOs gathered in Dakar to discuss Education for all believing that Education for All is achievable if government and international agencies commit themselves to the following:
There is a need to renew the commitment to education as a right as expressed in UN’s declaration on human rights. There must be a commitment to providing free quality basic education for all children, youth and adult. Equity in quality must be ensured at all levels. There must be a clear commitment to ensure that quality education for all includes all the marginalized and excluded groups like the disabled, ethnic minorities, internally displaced persons and refugees. There must be a clear statement that education is a core responsibility of the state. Education systems must respect and be based on local culture and respond to local needs. There must be a clear commitment to ensure gender equity in education at all levels. Adult literacy must be integrated with a wider process of community development and empowerment. The right to education starts from early childhood and continues through adulthood into old age.
However, creating access condition became essential even to access the extend of house hold demand for education. Rational location of educational facilities to benefit a relatively large number of children from the same amount of investment. Therefore it is a necessary step to promote development of education, the school mapping as planning approach focuses on the local level, provide an analytical framework for the implementation of education plans. They offer methods and techniques to estimate future needs and to identify ways to meet them. They can help to overcome the limitations of centralized planning through the correct understanding of local realities, the necessary consultation of relevant stake holders to facilitate and ultimately, a better fit between educational supply and demand. School mapping techniques (diagnostic, projections, use of norms and standards) and other relevant tools such as geographical information system (GIS) software, hardware, for the elaboration of a prospective school map.
School mapping is an important planning technique to arrive at rational decision regarding distribution of educational facilities across different geographical locations; the term “school mapping” seemingly implies that the exercise is confirmed to location of schools and distribution of school facilities. Tolutope (2011) Defined school mapping as a process of identifying the educational need of a community through investigation and survey exercise. It is a set of techniques and procedures used to plan the demand for school places at the local level and to decide the institutional level. It is the geographical location of school. It is not only concerned with the drawing of maps, but deals with school location, planning, the distribution of sizes, spacing of schools and school facilities.
The subject of school facilities had received considerable attention from the public as well as educators. Educators are faced today with a growing challenge of distributing the nation’s educational facilities. At the same time, educators were held accountable for student achievement (School Facilities Distribution Task Force, 2003). Technically speaking, school facilities, refer to those material things that help or aid the teaching and learning process in school (Urevbu 1991). Enaigbe and Osagie (2011) opined that school facilities could be viewed from two perspectives, namely, those facilities needed specifically for the academic or curriculum development of the students and those facilities that are either generalist in nature or that help the physical or non-curricular (including co- curricular development of the students. Examples of the former classification include teaching aids like books, filmstrips, chalk, marker pen, stationery, syllabus, scheme of works, charts audio-visual materials, writing board etc. The latter include seat/desks, sizeable classrooms, functional libraries, well equipped laboratories, electricity, water, offices, play field, hostels, gardens, space for future expansion etc (Nwadiani, 2005).
School facilities have been observed as a potent factor to quality education. The dictum that “teaching is inseparable from learning but learning is not separable from teaching” is that teachers do the teaching to make students learn, but students can learn without the teachers. According to Earthman (2002) school facilities have an impact on teacher effectiveness and student performance. This is so because they determine to a very large extent the smooth functioning of any social organization or system including education. Their availability, adequacy and relevance influence efficiency and high productivity.
When facilities are provided to meet relative needs of a school system, students will not only have access to the reference materials mentioned by the teacher, but individual students will also learn at their own pace. The net effect of this is increased overall academic performance of the entire students. Hale (2002) found out that students in classrooms with large windows, natural lighting, and well designed sky lights performed 19 to 26% better than their peers in classroom without these features. When school facilities are provided in measurable proportion as well as adequate care of them, the gains there are unquantifiable. In the opinion of Osaigboro (2000) the instructional materials aspect of school facilities when provided help to save time and simplify learning. Furthermore Osaigboro opined that, they appeal to the different senses of the students, thereby involving them in the learning process. When school facilities are properly distributed, a conducive atmosphere for learning is created. It is against this background that the study was necessitated to assess the relationship between school mapping components (school location and distribution of school facilities) and access to quality education in Kaura and Jama’a Local Government Areas of Kaduna State.