By Precious Oham
A university lecturer, Prof. Mary Adedokun has called on the government to create more awareness programmes and fund adult education to correct the misconceptions about adult education.
Prof. Adedokun stated this on Wednesday at the 77th Inaugural Lecture of Ekiti State University, EKSU,Ado-Ekiti The lecture was titled: “Adult Education, A Discipline for all Nations and People: Correcting the Misconceptions.”
According to her, adults, youths, men and women misconstrue the concept of adult education adding that parents discourage their children and wards from studying the discipline as it is perceived as a course of study for the aged people.
She noted that the general attitude of most Nigerians to adult education is negative owing to the fact that people don’t have a good knowledge of the discipline.
She went further to call on NGOs and well-meaning Nigerians to invest in adult education to make education accessible to everyone.
“Values inherent in adult education should be made known to all through awareness programmes about adult education on radio snd television.
“Government should fund adult education just as formal education is funded; as both types of education are aimed at making the masses literate and functional on their job performances.
“Facilitators should make adult education interesting to adult learners by making them realise that their wealth of experience matters a lot in the teaching and learning process.
“Introduction to Adult Education should be made a compulsory course of study for every undergraduate as each of these graduates will have to make contact with the adults and adult education programmes at a point in time in their lifetime.”