Curriculum and Indigenous Education for Technological Advancement (Published)
The curricula at various levels must be tuned to lubricate the wheels and make the hub of the Nigerian education system free and flexible enough to accelerate the attainment of the new aspirations of Nigeria towards the realization of Vision 202020 which include technological advancement. Curriculum is the sum total of human endeavours geared towards the realization of the aspiration of the society through the institution of the school. ‘Curriculum is also described as ‘what happens to students for which the school is responsible’, because curriculum happens within the school system, it is therefore imperative to include indigenous knowledge into the school curricula to ensure that local/indigenous technologies are improved upon as to bring about modernization of society. In nowadays knowledge-based society, the local embedded knowledge and innovation are considered as the core-competence of the curriculum of the region. In rural areas, maybe it is not suitable to adopt the high-tech or other industrial cluster development strategy as in urban areas because of the barrier of ‘organizational thinness’. However, the rural areas always have their special local resources, especially the intangible asset, such as cultural resources and local knowledge embedded in the long history. Besides absorbing the external knowledge, exploiting the local knowledge will also enrich the knowledge network of the local areas. Moreover, because indigenous knowledge was generated from the local wisdom and culture, it fits to the local situation natively, and also it is very hard for others to imitate.
Keywords: Curriculum, Educational gap., Nigeria, indigenous education, local skills, local technology