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.